COVID 19 information in care and nursing homes

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Care Quality Commission should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Care Quality Commission,
Please provide the following:
1. A full list of care homes & nursing homes in North Yorkshire who reported suspected or confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) to the CQC between 1st January 2020 to 10th June 2020
Please present separate lists, i.e.
Names of homes with suspected infection
Names of homes with confirmed infection
2. The exact date the CQC became aware of coronavirus and its appearance in The UK
3. The date of the first reported incident of coronavirus reported to the CQC by North Yorkshire care and nursing homes.

Yours faithfully,

Sue Stone

Information Access, Care Quality Commission

Dear Ms Stone

 

I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 11 June 2020, in which
you made a request for information.

 

Your request is as follows:

 

“1. A full list of care homes & nursing homes in North Yorkshire who
reported suspected or confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) to the CQC
between 1st January 2020 to 10th June 2020 Please present separate lists,
i.e.

Names of homes with suspected infection Names of homes with confirmed
infection 2. The exact date the CQC became aware of coronavirus and its
appearance in The UK 3. The date of the first reported incident of
coronavirus reported to the CQC by North Yorkshire care and nursing
homes.”

 

CQC will consider your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

 

Our statutory deadline for response is 9 July 2020.

 

As you are aware, the health and social care system will be experiencing
significant pressure due to the Covid-19 (corona virus) pandemic. We
expect these pressures to continue for several months.

 

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is currently dealing with these
pressures in a number of ways, including:

 

o Releasing many of our staff to support front-line care and other
priority national and local services,
o [1]Stopping routine inspections and adapting our processes to monitor
and act where we identify clear risk of harm,
o Providing advice, support and coordination across health and social
care,
o Adapting to new ways of working in the current situation.

 

The work necessary to make these changes, along with anticipated staff
sickness and the release of our colleagues to support front line care, is
likely to significantly impact upon the resource that we have available to
respond to requests for information over the coming months.

 

We are continuing to handle and respond to requests for information, and
we are still making every effort to comply with the deadlines. We
recognise the importance of maintaining your right to information and of
transparency and openness.

 

You can assist CQC in the work we are doing to support the NHS and other
parts of the health and social sector:

 

o Please be patient if the response to your request is delayed. We will
try to respond to your request as quickly as possible, and we will try
to keep you informed if the response is delayed - but this may not
always be possible.
o If your request is urgent, consider whether you can simplify it. If
you can be clearer about the information you need then it may be
quicker and easier for us to deal with. For example; Do you only need
information between certain dates? Are you looking for information
only on a specific issue that would help us target our searches? If
so, please let us know so we can avoid any unnecessary work.
o If your request is not urgent, please consider withdrawing it for now.
You can do that by responding to this email with your name and request
number (beginning CQC IAT 2021 xxxx) and telling us that you wish to
withdraw the request. You will be able to re-submit your request at a
later date.
o Communicating with us by email, rather than by post, where possible.
Mail is likely to be delayed due to staffing disruptions in our mail
room.
o If you need to contact CQC about any matter apart from your request
for information use [2][email address] or our [3]online contact
form
o If you have also made information requests to other health or social
care organisations, please consider whether you can take similar steps
to help reduce the burden on them too.

 

You can read the latest government information and advice on corona virus
[4]here

 

Thank you for your support and patience at this time.

 

Regards

 

On behalf of:

Information Access Team

Regulatory Customer & Corporate Operations 

 

Care Quality Commission

Citygate

Gallowgate

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 4PA

 

The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and
adult social care services in England. [5]www.cqc.org.uk. For general
enquiries, call the National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) on 03000
616161 or email [6][email address]

 

Personal data is processed in accordance with the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) and relevant data protection law. Information on the
processing of personal data by CQC can be found at
[7]www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-policies/privacy-statement

 

Statutory requests for information made under access to information
legislation such as the Data Protection Act 2018, GDPR and the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 should be sent to: [8][CQC request email]

 

-------------- The contents of this email and any attachments are
confidential to the intended recipient. They may not be disclosed to or
used by or copied in any way by anyone other than the intended recipient.
If this email is received in error, please notify us immediately by
clicking "Reply" and delete the email. Please note that neither the Care
Quality Commission nor the sender accepts any responsibility for viruses
and it is your responsibility to scan or otherwise check this email and
any attachments. Any views expressed in this message are those of the
individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be
the views of the Care Quality Commission. Information on how the Care
Quality Commission processes personal data is available here
http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...

References

Visible links
1. https://www.cqc.org.uk/news/releases/cqc...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. https://webdataforms.cqc.org.uk/Checkbox...
4. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-...
5. http://www.cqc.org.uk/
6. mailto:[email address]
7. http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...
8. mailto:[CQC request email]

Information Access, Care Quality Commission

1 Attachment

8 July 2020

 

Ref CQC IAT 2021 0052

 

Dear Ms Stone

 

I write in response to your correspondence dated 11 June 2020 in which you
requested information from the Care Quality Commission.

 

We are unable to provide information in relation to suspected or confirmed
cases of Covid-19 under Freedom of Information because we consider a
number of exemptions from the right to know apply.

 

Please see the attached decision notice which explains our decision in
full, and how you can challenge it if you are unhappy with it.

 

CQC will always endeavour to provide high quality responses to requests
for information and seek to be as helpful as possible. We would therefore
appreciate if you can take some time to complete our online feedback form
by visiting the following link:

 

[1]https://surveys.cqc.org.uk/InformationAc...

 

Any information you provide will be held securely and only used for the
purposes of improving the Information Rights service that CQC provides.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Amy Stanley

 

Information Access Officer

Governance and Legal Services

 

Care Quality Commission

Citygate

Gallowgate

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE1 4PA

 

03000 616161

 

 

The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of all health and
adult social care in England. [2]www.cqc.org.uk. For general enquiries,
call the National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) on 03000 616161 or email
[3][email address].

Personal data is processed in accordance with the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) and relevant data protection law. Information on the
processing of personal data by CQC can be found at:
[4]http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...

Statutory requests for information made under access to information
legislation such as the GDPR and the Freedom of Information Act 2000
should be sent to: [5][CQC request email].

 

-------------- The contents of this email and any attachments are
confidential to the intended recipient. They may not be disclosed to or
used by or copied in any way by anyone other than the intended recipient.
If this email is received in error, please notify us immediately by
clicking "Reply" and delete the email. Please note that neither the Care
Quality Commission nor the sender accepts any responsibility for viruses
and it is your responsibility to scan or otherwise check this email and
any attachments. Any views expressed in this message are those of the
individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be
the views of the Care Quality Commission. Information on how the Care
Quality Commission processes personal data is available here
http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...

References

Visible links
1. https://surveys.cqc.org.uk/informationac...
https://surveys.cqc.org.uk/InformationAc...
2. http://www.cqc.org.uk/
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...
5. mailto:[CQC request email]

Dear Information Access,
Thank you for your response advising that as usual, you refuse to provide information in relation to suspected or confirmed cases of Covid-19 under Freedom of Information because and claim a
number of exemptions from the right to know apply.
In this, you are denying the public's right to know which care homes provide a safe environment and which have failed to do so and instead continue your role to protect the care homes that provide your income and ensure once again that there are no consequences to the abuse and neglect of care residents

Yours sincerely

Susan Stone

Dear Information Access,

Thank you for your response advising you are unable to provide information in response to part 1 of your request because we consider it to be exempt under section 41 of the FOIA.
Please advise you consider this information to be confidential and not in the public interest?
You are also unable to provide information in response to parts 2 and 3 of your request because to do so would exceed the allowable cost limit, as defined under section 12 of the FOIA.
Please would you advise what can be disclosed within the cost limits?

Yours sincerely,

Susan Stone