14 May 2020
Mr Duncan Long
By email only: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Mr Long
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) - Internal Review
Thank you for your email dated 13 March 2020. I have now carried out a review of
our response to your request for information concerning Dr Sarju Man Shrestha.
I'm sorry for the delay in responding to you.
To recap, on 9 March 2020 we wrote to explain that we could not confirm whether
or not we hold the information you request. We provided a link to the doctor’s
entry on our online register and explained that we may only disclose information
relating to fitness to practise complaints in certain circumstances. We stated that
the exemption listed at section 40(5B)(a)(i) of the FOIA applies; Ms Gormley set
this out as follows:
“Section 40(5B)(a)(i) of the FOIA applies where the information, if held, would be
the personal data of a third party and where confirming whether it’s held would
breach any of the principles relating to the processing of personal data listed at
Article 5 of the GDPR. I believe that to publicly confirm or deny whether we hold
the information would breach the first principle, which requires that the processing
of personal data is fair, lawful and transparent. I do not believe that any of the
legal bases for processing listed at Article 6 of the GDPR are met and therefore
giving you the information would be unlawful.”
My review
I have carefully considered the application of this exemption. My view is that the
exemption was appropriately applied and therefore our position remains that the
exemption set out at section 40(5B)(a)(i) of the FOIA applies.
To explain, the FOIA obliges us to firstly confirm whether the requested
information is held, and secondly to provide it. Both obligations are subject to a
number of exemptions. Therefore, my first step is to consider if we can confirm
whether or not the requested information is held.
We have a publication and disclosure policy which sets out when and where we will
publish fitness to practise information. This is available at https://www.gmc-
uk.org/-/media/documents/dc4380-publication-and-disclosure-policy-36609763.pdf.
We can confirm that there is no fitness to practise information publicly available
about this doctor in line with our policy. In relation to whether or not we hold any
other fitness to practise information we do not believe that it is appropriate to
confirm or deny whether any other information is held. We believe that doing so
would be in breach of the principles relating to the processing of personal data
listed at Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation (as set out in our
response of 9 March 2020).
Next steps
I'm am sorry that we are unable to assist further regarding your request for
information under the FOIA. You can appeal this decision to the Information
Commissioner's Office; further details are available at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-
complaint/.
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Hiley
Information Access Manager
Email: xxxxxxxxx.xxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx