Public Accountability Unit
Tel: 020 8327 6920
Wellington House
www.gov.uk/phe
133-155 Waterloo Road
London SE1 8UG
By email
S Smith
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Our ref: 14/09/lh/293
12 October 2016
Dear S Smith
Re: list of recipients of patient level data
Thank you for your request for information received on 14 September 2016.Your
email has been handled as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Act. Under Section 1(1)(a) I can confirm that PHE holds the
information you have requested.
Please provide a complete list of all recipients of patient level data (i.e. where a
record relates to a patient) from PHE in July 2016, and a description of the data
they received. For each release, please include the organisation name and
type, and the details provided in sections 3, 4 and 6 (or project summary, data
specification, and legal gateway) of your current application form (or
equivalent, as seen at http://www.ncin.org.uk/view?rid=2989 )
This information should form part of an adequate data release register, but is
missing from yours, for reasons you state on the website: "This register
details any explicitly or potentially identifiable data releases made by the
Office for Data Release".
All patient level data releases managed via the Office for Data Release (ODR) are
published in the ODR Data Release Register
(https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-health-england-data-release-
register ). Updates to the Data Release Register will occur on a quarterly financial
year basis and July 2016 releases will be made available in the next update.
Therefore, in accordance with the Section 22 – information intended
for future
publication, exemption, the information you have requested is exempt from
disclosure.
Under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act, public authorities are not
obliged to provide information that is intended for future publication. In line with the
terms of this exemption in the Act, we have considered whether;
- maintaining access to data in a co-ordinated manner to all people at the same time,
as well as
- ensuring the quality and integrity of data
In this case, we have concluded that the public interest favours withholding the
information.
Our view that Section 22 applies to your request is based on the judgement that the
public interest will be better served by general publication, when complete.
Disclosure now, to a single individual, of incomplete data and therefore potentially
misleading information would not be in the public interest.
For patient level data not released via the Office for Data Release, the July 2016
releases are detailed below:
If you have any queries regarding the information that has been supplied to you,
please refer your query to me in writing in the first instance. If you remain dissatisfied
and would like to request an internal review, then please contact us at the address
above or by emailing xxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Please note that you have the right to an independent review by the Information
Commissioner’s Office if a complaint cannot be resolved through the PHE
complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted by
writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer