NEL,
1 Lower Marsh,
London,
SE1 7NT
Email: xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx
28 November 2018
Dear Ms Campuzano,
Re: Freedom of Information Request
Reference:
FOI.18.MERT184
Thank you for your request under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). This response is
provided on behalf of NHS Merton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Your request along with the
CCG’s response is detailed below.
I am investigating how accessible it is to get breast reduction surgery on a non-cosmetic basis
through the NHS.
Please can you provide me with the following information:
Do you fund breast reduction surgery at all? If you do, what criteria do you follow to
determine who gets it? (Muscular pain, skin irritation or infections, etc.)
Please refer to the attached South West London Effective Commissioning Initiative Policy.
How long is the waiting time for patients to get assessed by a surgeon after they've been
referred by their GP, if they are thought to be eligible for the surgery?
I can confirm that NHS Merton CCG does not hold this information.
How long is the waiting time for a panel of representatives to review the case after a patient
has been assessed by a surgeon?
I can confirm that NHS Merton CCG does not hold this information. For Individual Funding
Requests, the CCG endeavour to provide a decision within 20 working days of receipt of a fully
completed application form. For Prior Approval Requests, the CCG endeavour to provide a
decision within 3 working days.
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How many cases for breast reduction surgery have you reviewed in the last 10 years, and how
many of these have been successful, with a breakdown of each year and patient age?
Please refer to attachment Appendix A to see breast reduction requests received by Individual
Funding Requests and also for those received via Prior Approval Requests. The data for Individual
Funding Requests has been provided from 1 April 2013.
What options do you offer patients if they are unsuccessful in getting breast reduction surgery
through the NHS?
The Individual Funding Request process is in place if a patient does not meet the prior approvals
criteria set out within the South West London Effective Commissioning Initiative Policy and their
clinician feels there are clinically exceptional circumstances.
Copyright and Re-Use of Public Sector Information
NEL is a commissioning support unit hosted by NHS England. The CSU handles Freedom of Information
requests on behalf of the NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups across London, Kent and Northampton.
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing
and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication and
subscription charge, would require the permission of the copyright holder. This can be obtained via an
application for an open government licence (OGL) under the
Re-Use of Public Sector Information
Regulations 2015.
Use of information expressly made available under this license indicates your acceptance of the terms
and conditions as set out in the OGL.
To make an application for re-use you must:
Make a request in writing to the address below,
State the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence,
Specify the document to be re-used,
State the purpose for which the document is to be re-used
Email
Postal address
Website address
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xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx
NEL,
www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
1 Lower Marsh,
London,
SE1 7NT
For information where the copyright is owned by another person or organisation, you must apply to the
copyright owner to obtain their permission to re-use. Further guidance for re-users can be found at:
http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/ogl-user-guidance.pdf
NEL complies with the
Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 and we encourage the re-
use of the information that we produce, hold and disseminate. We are open and transparent, and treat
all applications to re-use in a fair and non-discriminatory way.
Privacy Notice (formerly known as Fair Processing Notice)
We will record your contact and request details in order to monitor and improve the service we provide
and in order to discharge our statutory obligations under the Act. This information will be handled in
accordance with the NHS Confidentiality Code of Practice and the
Data Protection Act 2018.
Using personal data we provide
You are required not to use personal data which is provided to you for electronic marketing (telesales,
fax, e-mail) to our staff and comply with the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive)
Regulations 2003. Provision of such personal data in response to a Freedom of Information or
Environmental Information request does not constitute consent from the individual concerned.
The
Data Protection Act gives individuals rights to prevent processing likely to cause substantial
unwarranted damage or unwarranted distress (section 10) and to prevent processing for the purposes of
direct marketing (section 11). You should be aware that selling, giving or sharing of personal data could
breach the
Data Protection Act. NEL advises staff of their rights on behalf of Clinical Commissioning
Groups.
Review procedure
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If you feel that we have not met the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you should
contact the FOI Team at:
xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx
If you remain dissatisfied, you can ask us to review our decision by making a written request for an
internal review. In order to assist with the review, you should include your address, a description of the
original request and the reasons why you are dissatisfied. Please send this to:
Email
Postal address
Website address
xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx
NEL CSU,
www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
1 Lower Marsh,
London,
SE1 7NT
The review will be handled by more senior staff who were not involved in the original decision. Although
this will not apply to Section 36 claimed exemptions in accordance with Department of Health Directive,
your request will still be reviewed. We aim to complete all internal reviews within 20 working days. If you
then wish to appeal you should contact the Information Commissioner for an independent review at the
following address:
Telephone
Postal address
Website address
01625 545745
The Information Commissioner,
www.ico.gov.uk
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF
Feedback
Your feedback is welcome to help us improve the service we provide. Please send comments or
suggestions to our address.
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Yours sincerely,
Freedom of Information Team
NEL
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