Agency Recruitment

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,

I would like to request the following information under the freedom of information act:

1. How many doctors have been booked outside of IR35 since April 2017?
2. What is your yearly trust spend on agency locum doctors via framework agencies, broken down into grade and specialty?
3. What is your yearly trust spend on agency locum doctors via OFF-framework agencies, broken down into grade and specialty?
4. What is your average total charge rate for a locum consultant doctor?
5. Who is the highest paid locum Consultant, what is the hourly rate and in what specialty do they practice?
6. Please can you outline your spend per agency, broken down by grade and specialty of doctor over the past 12 months?

I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours faithfully,

Steve Mountain

FOI, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Mountain,

Freedom of Information Act Request Acknowledgment

Thank you for contacting the Freedom of Information Office at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We confirm that we have received your correspondence.

Your request below is being considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days following the date on which the request was received, as defined by the Act, subject to the information not being covered by an exemption or containing reference to a third party.

For your information, the Act defines a number of exemptions which may prevent release of some or all of the information you have requested. There will be an assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the case, including your rights of appeal.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release some or all of the information to you. You will be informed if this is the case.

There may be a fee payable for this information. This will be considered and you will be informed if as fee is payable. In this event the fee must be paid before the information is processed and released. The 20 working day time limit for responses is suspended until receipt of payment. You will be informed if this is the case.
If you have made a request for information held by the Trust - we will contact you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will respond to you within the statutory timescale of 20 working days following the date on which the request was received.

If you have any further queries or concerns then please do not hesitate to contact us.

With best regards,

Alan Larn.

Alan Larn | communications officer (Freedom of Information) | communications department
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | Nethermayne | Essex | SS16 5NL
01268 524900 ext 2992
[Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust request email]

safe  caring  excellent  …together

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Dear FOI,

I have yet to receive a response regarding my FOI questions and the allotted time laid out in the FOI act has now expired, please can you advise?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Mountain

FOI, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Mountain,

This is one I chased last Wednesday. Unfortunately, I have not yet received a response and the person responsible is out of the office until tomorrow. I have now contacted other colleagues to see if they can help.

I apologise for the delay and assure you that I will get in touch as soon as I receive anything.

With best regards,

Alan Larn.

Alan Larn | communications officer (Freedom of Information) | communications department
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | Nethermayne | Essex | SS16 5NL
01268 524900 ext 2992
[Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust request email]

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Dear FOI,

I have not received a response to my questions within the allotted time set by the FOI act, please advise?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Mountain

FOI, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Mountain,

I have answers to questions 1 to 5. I am still waiting for the information requested in question 6, but I am advised that it would involve opening and analysing every invoice, which could have implications resulting from Section 12 of the FOI Act concerning the time it would take.

Do you want to wait until we have a definitive answer for question 6, or would you like to have our answers to questions 1 to 5 now?

With best regards,

Alan Larn.

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Dear FOI,

It's fine, I can wait until you have all the info.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Mountain

FOI, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Understood - and thanks for your patience.

Regards,

Alan.

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Dear FOI,

Please can you give me an update on this?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Mountain

Dr Colin Iain Campbell MBChB FRSPH left an annotation ()

A potential way around this Steve is to request the actual invoices and do the work yourself of locating it....

Worth knowing that under the Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations time taken to consider any exemptions/redact the information is not a consideration with respect to the Section 12 costs limit, its quite prescriptive about what is and isn't included....However as retrieving/extracting the information is included when they argue they have to go through every invoice to find the info that is part of the request...if giving you all of the invoices it isn't...

An alternative approach - they're required to send metrics back to NHS Improvement on number of locum appointments etc - it may be you can request this data from them, NHS Improvement doesn't seem very keen on releasing it but that's another avenue.

Good luck and feel free to reach out to the IHPA given the sort of questions you're asking we may have similar interests.

PS - On the off chance you end up fighting exemptions in your collection of FOIs like this that have gone off to various places you might find this app I wrote handy: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...