Thank you for getting in touch. Please note this is an automated email.
Your receipt of this means that we have safely received your email.

We are currently receiving a high volume of requests and there will be a
delay in getting back to you with a further acknowledgement. We will do so
as soon as we can.

Since 6 December 2023, the GMC has been subject to the Welsh Language
Standards. You are welcome to contact us in Welsh and we will respond in
Welsh, without this causing additional delay.

In the meantime, if you want any further information about the GMC, please
visit our website: [1]Home - GMC (gmc-uk.org)

General Medical Council

We work with doctors, patients, and other stakeholders to support good,
safe patient care across the UK. We set the standards doctors and those
who train them need to meet, and help them achieve them. If there are
concerns these standards may not be met or that public confidence in
doctors may be at risk, we can investigate, and take action if needed.

This email may contain privileged or confidential information which should
only be used for the purpose for which it has been sent.

If you are not the addressee or have received this email in error, please
do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any
attachments. Please email the sender and then immediately delete it.

The General Medical Council is a charity registered in England and Wales
(1089278) and in Scotland (SC037750)

You are welcome to contact us in Welsh. We will respond in Welsh, without
this causing additional delay.

_________________________________________________________________

Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol

Rydym yn gweithio gyda meddygon, cleifion a rhanddeiliaid eraill i
gynorthwyo gofal da a diogel i gleifion ar draws y DU. Rydym yn gosod y
safonau y bydd angen i feddygon a’r rhai sy’n eu hyfforddi eu bodloni, ac
yn eu helpu i’w cyflawni. Os bydd pryderon efallai na fydd y safonau hyn
yn cael eu cyflawni neu y gallai hyder y cyhoedd mewn meddygon fod mewn
perygl, gallwn ymchwilio, a gweithredu os oes angen.

Efallai bod y neges e-bost hon yn cynnwys gwybodaeth freiniol neu
gyfrinachol, y dylid ei defnyddio at y diben y’i hanfonwyd yn unig.

Os nad chi yw’r derbynnydd neu os ydych chi wedi cael yr e-bost hwn mewn
camgymeriad, peidiwch â’i ddarllen, argraffu, ail-anfon, storio na
gweithredu mewn ffordd sy’n dibynnu arni neu unrhyw atodiadau os gwelwch
yn dda. Dylech anfon e-bost at yr anfonwr ac yna, ei ddileu ar unwaith.

Mae’r Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol yn elusen gofrestredig yng Nghymru a
Lloegr (1089278) ac yn Yr Alban (SC037750)

Mae croeso i chi gysylltu â ni yn Gymraeg. Byddwn yn ymateb yn Gymraeg,
heb i hyn achosi oedi ychwanegol.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gmc-uk.org/

Dear Susan Sollazzi,

Your information request – IR1-4516508199

Thank you for your Email below dated 22^nd July 2024.

How we will consider your request

We are going to consider your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA). The FOIA gives us 20 working days to respond, but we’ll come
back to you as soon as we can.

Your request will be allocated to a member of the team. If you have any
queries please email [1][GMC request email].

Kind regards,

Information Access Team

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

show quoted sections

Thank you for getting in touch. Please note this is an automated email.
Your receipt of this means that we have safely received your email.

We are currently receiving a high volume of requests and there will be a
delay in getting back to you with a further acknowledgement. We will do so
as soon as we can.

Since 6 December 2023, the GMC has been subject to the Welsh Language
Standards. You are welcome to contact us in Welsh and we will respond in
Welsh, without this causing additional delay.

In the meantime, if you want any further information about the GMC, please
visit our website: [1]Home - GMC (gmc-uk.org)

General Medical Council

We work with doctors, patients, and other stakeholders to support good,
safe patient care across the UK. We set the standards doctors and those
who train them need to meet, and help them achieve them. If there are
concerns these standards may not be met or that public confidence in
doctors may be at risk, we can investigate, and take action if needed.

This email may contain privileged or confidential information which should
only be used for the purpose for which it has been sent.

If you are not the addressee or have received this email in error, please
do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any
attachments. Please email the sender and then immediately delete it.

The General Medical Council is a charity registered in England and Wales
(1089278) and in Scotland (SC037750)

You are welcome to contact us in Welsh. We will respond in Welsh, without
this causing additional delay.

_________________________________________________________________

Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol

Rydym yn gweithio gyda meddygon, cleifion a rhanddeiliaid eraill i
gynorthwyo gofal da a diogel i gleifion ar draws y DU. Rydym yn gosod y
safonau y bydd angen i feddygon a’r rhai sy’n eu hyfforddi eu bodloni, ac
yn eu helpu i’w cyflawni. Os bydd pryderon efallai na fydd y safonau hyn
yn cael eu cyflawni neu y gallai hyder y cyhoedd mewn meddygon fod mewn
perygl, gallwn ymchwilio, a gweithredu os oes angen.

Efallai bod y neges e-bost hon yn cynnwys gwybodaeth freiniol neu
gyfrinachol, y dylid ei defnyddio at y diben y’i hanfonwyd yn unig.

Os nad chi yw’r derbynnydd neu os ydych chi wedi cael yr e-bost hwn mewn
camgymeriad, peidiwch â’i ddarllen, argraffu, ail-anfon, storio na
gweithredu mewn ffordd sy’n dibynnu arni neu unrhyw atodiadau os gwelwch
yn dda. Dylech anfon e-bost at yr anfonwr ac yna, ei ddileu ar unwaith.

Mae’r Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol yn elusen gofrestredig yng Nghymru a
Lloegr (1089278) ac yn Yr Alban (SC037750)

Mae croeso i chi gysylltu â ni yn Gymraeg. Byddwn yn ymateb yn Gymraeg,
heb i hyn achosi oedi ychwanegol.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gmc-uk.org/

Dear Susan Sollazzi,

Your information requests - IR1-4516508199, IR1-4535409794,
IR1-4562050329, IR1-4562050158, and IR1-4562050293

I write further to previous correspondence with a response under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I am unable to provide you with the information you have requested. This
is because of the amount of data you’ve asked for and the work that would
be involved. Under FOIA there’s an exemption for requests where it would
cost the public authority more than £450 to process - equivalent to 18
hours. This is based on an hourly rate of £25 per hour, which is set by
the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
This amount is called the ‘appropriate limit.’ To estimate the cost, we
can take into account determining, locating, retrieving and extracting the
information requested.

Amalgamation of requests

When a public authority estimates whether the appropriate limit is likely
to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more
requests so long as the requests are:

• Made for the same or similar information; and

• Received within any period of 60 consecutive working days.

I am including your requests made on 22 July, 5 August and 23 August 2024
when determining if the ‘appropriate limit’ is exceeded which relate to
information about Physician Associates and/or Anaesthesia Associates.
These requests were all made within a month of each other.

The exemption

Under the FOIA, the specific exemption which we believe applies is at
section 12. This states that we are not required to comply with a request
if we estimate that the cost of doing so would exceed the appropriate
limit.

For example, by just focusing on your email dated 22 July 2024 where you
have asked “Please advise how many GMC members have declined to renew
their membership because of the proposal to register PAs and AAs. Please
provide statistics per month from January 2023”, we would have to manually
check applications for voluntary erasures. This is because any specific
objection or concerns about the GMC’s regulation of PAs and AAs would have
to be made during the course of a doctor’s application for voluntary
erasure. Doctors with those objections may have put no reasons in their
actual application, or a combination of any other reasons, and then
mentioned PAs or AAs in their correspondence to us. I should clarify that
there is not a specific field for doctors to check which would indicate
their specific objection to the regulation of PAs and AAs.

There have been 6,003 applications for voluntary erasure since January
2023, and this does not include doctors who have relinquished their
licence to practise only. It would take around 8 minutes to review each
application and any corresponding documents to determine whether a doctor
undertook voluntary erasure because of the above reason. Based on an
hourly rate of £25 per hour (which is set by the Freedom of Information
(Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004) this would cost us
significantly in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’ to process.

It is therefore overall clear that s.12 FOIA applies when considering your
requests collectively in accordance with the amalgamation rules set out
above.

Advice and assistance

I have included links to our website where you can access publicly
available information about the regulation of PAs and AAs:

• [1]Supporting documents on our proposed rules, standards and guidance
for the regulation of PAs and AAs
• [2]PA and AA regulation hub
• [3]Council papers from 2015 onwards which includes information on all
our work to bring PAs and AAs into regulation since 2019 when the
Department of Health and Social Care made its request

You can also choose to narrow the scope of your requests by focusing on
one question, or choosing to focus on one request, as well as narrowing
the date parameters. However, I should add that the s.12 exemption under
the FOIA (or another exemption) may still be applicable to any requests
you raise in the future.

Your right to appeal

If you would like to appeal this decision please set out your reasons in
writing to [4][GMC request email]. Please note that we will only usually
consider appeals received within 40 working days of our response. You can
also appeal to the [5]Information Commissioner, the regulator of the FOIA
and DPA.

Kind regards,

Henna Janghir

Information Access Officer

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

Email: [6][email address]

Tel: 0161 923 6710

Website: [7]www.gmc-uk.org

General Medical Council

We work with doctors, patients, and other stakeholders to support good,
safe patient care across the UK. We set the standards doctors and those
who train them need to meet, and help them achieve them. If there are
concerns these standards may not be met or that public confidence in
doctors may be at risk, we can investigate, and take action if needed.

This email may contain privileged or confidential information which should
only be used for the purpose for which it has been sent.

If you are not the addressee or have received this email in error, please
do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any
attachments. Please email the sender and then immediately delete it.

The General Medical Council is a charity registered in England and Wales
(1089278) and in Scotland (SC037750)

You are welcome to contact us in Welsh. We will respond in Welsh, without
this causing additional delay.

_________________________________________________________________

Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol

Rydym yn gweithio gyda meddygon, cleifion a rhanddeiliaid eraill i
gynorthwyo gofal da a diogel i gleifion ar draws y DU. Rydym yn gosod y
safonau y bydd angen i feddygon a’r rhai sy’n eu hyfforddi eu bodloni, ac
yn eu helpu i’w cyflawni. Os bydd pryderon efallai na fydd y safonau hyn
yn cael eu cyflawni neu y gallai hyder y cyhoedd mewn meddygon fod mewn
perygl, gallwn ymchwilio, a gweithredu os oes angen.

Efallai bod y neges e-bost hon yn cynnwys gwybodaeth freiniol neu
gyfrinachol, y dylid ei defnyddio at y diben y’i hanfonwyd yn unig.

Os nad chi yw’r derbynnydd neu os ydych chi wedi cael yr e-bost hwn mewn
camgymeriad, peidiwch â’i ddarllen, argraffu, ail-anfon, storio na
gweithredu mewn ffordd sy’n dibynnu arni neu unrhyw atodiadau os gwelwch
yn dda. Dylech anfon e-bost at yr anfonwr ac yna, ei ddileu ar unwaith.

Mae’r Cyngor Meddygol Cyffredinol yn elusen gofrestredig yng Nghymru a
Lloegr (1089278) ac yn Yr Alban (SC037750)

Mae croeso i chi gysylltu â ni yn Gymraeg. Byddwn yn ymateb yn Gymraeg,
heb i hyn achosi oedi ychwanegol.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gmc-uk.org/pa-and-aa-regulat...
2. https://www.gmc-uk.org/pa-and-aa-regulat...
3. https://www.gmc-uk.org/about/how-we-work...
4. mailto:[gmc%20request%20email]
5. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
6. mailto:[email%20address]
7. http://www.gmc-uk.org/