Eaton Road
Liverpool
L12 2AP
Telephone: 0151 228 4811
www.alderhey.nhs.uk
22nd August 2018
Ms. Alison Stevens
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Ms. Stevens,
Further to your request for information received on 24/07/2018 and allocated reference
number FoI-2018-4182 please find below our response to your request. Please accept my
apologies on behalf of the Trust for the delay in responding to your Freedom of Information
request.
Questions and Responses
The Trust can neither confirm nor deny that it holds the information requested, as doing so
would breach data protection legislation and patient confidentiality, for the reasons given
below.
1. How many drugs errors were there with regards to Baby Alfie Evans with reference the
whole of his time in Alder Hey Children’s Hospital? Please give statistics for the whole stay
in the Hospital?
The Trust maintains an accurate, complete and contemporaneous record in respect of
each patient, including a record of the care and treatment provided to the patient and of
decisions taken in relation to the care and treatment provided. However, The Trust owes a
duty of confidentiality to its patients and this duty continues beyond death. Confirming
whether or not the Trust holds the information of the description requested would reveal
details of the patient’s care and therefore be in breach of the Trust’s duty of confidentiality.
Section 41(2) of the Act provides that the duty to confirm or deny does not arise if doing so
would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. This is an absolute exemption
therefore there it is not necessary to apply the public interest test (although, for the
avoidance of doubt, the Trust has considered whether disclosure is justified in the public
interest and has concluded that is not). The Trust therefore relies upon this exemption.
2. What happened to the Nurses who committed these drug errors did they have to go on
extra training days and were they placed on supervision when doing drug rounds. ?and
does any of these Nurses still work for the Hospital Trust?
The Trust relies upon the section 41(2) exemption in relation to the information requested,
for the same reasons as provided in response to question1.
Confirming whether or not the Trust holds the information requested, or supplying such
information (if so held), would also amount to the disclosure of the personal data of the
member(s) of staff in question and a breach of the data protection principles under the
General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. In particular, it
would amount to a breach of the ‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’ principle because
information regarding the training, supervision, management and discipline of staff are
personal matters in respect of which such staff have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Section 40(5B)(a)(ii) of the Act provides that the duty to confirm or deny does not arise in
relation to information if or to the extent that doing so would contravene the data protection
principles. This is an absolute exemption therefore it is not necessary to apply the public
interest test (although, for the avoidance of doubt, the Trust has considered whether
disclosure is justified in the public interest and has concluded that is not). The Trust
therefore also relies upon this exemption.
3. Can you please provide me with a copy of the Trusts policy relating to drug errors ?
The Trust holds the information requested. A copy of the relevant policy is attached.
If you have any queries about this response or wish to discuss your request further please
contact the Information Governance team.
If you are unhappy with the response provided, you may request an internal review.
Yours sincerely,
Information Governance Team
Corporate Affairs
Re-use of information The above information provided is
Trust copyright. You may re-use this Alder Hey
Children’s NHS Foundation Trust copyright information in accordance with the Open
Government Licence:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-
licence/version/2/
