Dear Louise

Reference No: EH-327273

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

 

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request, sent to our office on
30 December 2022, in which you asked:

In relation to the RAPID C-19 meetings of 9 and 16 February 2022 please
provide:

- the details of the attendees;
- the agenda; and

- any briefing / advice papers provided on Evusheld including horizon
scanning outputs.

 

Your request will now be considered under the Freedom of Information Act
2000, which provides public access to information held by public
authorities. You will receive a response within the statutory timescale of
20 working days as defined by the Act, subject to the information not
being exempt or containing a reference to a third party. In some
circumstances we may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is likely
you will be informed and given a revised timescale at the earliest
opportunity.

 

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you chose not to make a payment then your request will remain
unanswered.

 

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
NICE.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Victoria

 

Communications manager

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Level 1A | City Tower |
Piccadilly Plaza | Manchester M1 4BT | United Kingdom

 

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show quoted sections

Dear Louise

 

Reference No: EH-327273

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (FOI) ACT 2000

 

Thank you for your request, received by our office on 30 December 2022, in
which you asked for the following:

 

“In relation to the RAPID C-19 meetings of 9 and 16 February 2022 please
provide:

 

- the details of the attendees;
- the agenda; and

- any briefing / advice papers provided on Evusheld including horizon
scanning outputs.”

 

Response

 

 1. Details of the attendees and the agendas in relation to the RAPID C-19
meetings of 9 and 16 February 2022

 

The information that we hold that falls within the scope of this part of
your request is attached to this email as PDF documents. This consists of
2 meeting agendas (marked as doc a and doc b).

 

I can confirm that we do not hold details of who attended each meeting,
but we do hold the details of those invited, and this is included in the
attached agendas (redacted as appropriate, as explained below).

 

Some of the information within the agendas has been withheld, as we
believe that section 40 of the FOI Act applies. This information consists
of the names and initials of some NICE staff or external individuals who
are named in the agendas.

 

Please see below for further details on section 40.

 

Section 40 of the FOI Act

 

Section 40(2) of the FOI Act exempts third party personal data (i.e.
personal data of anyone other than the applicant) from disclosure if
disclosure would breach any one of the data protection principles (section
40(3A)). The data protection principles are provided in Article 5 of the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Principle 1(a) states that
personal data must be ‘processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent
manner in relation to the data subject’.

 

Releasing personal information in response to an FOI request is classed as
‘processing’ and can only be done if there is a lawful basis to do so. The
lawful bases are outlined in Article 6 of the GDPR. Only (a) consent and
(f) legitimate interests are relevant to disclosure under FOIA and are
considered below.

 

On basis a, we do not have explicit consent for the disclosure of the
third party’s personal data.

 

While section 40(2) and (3A) is an absolute exemption, and thus not
subject to the public interest test, a balancing exercise is required to
weigh up the rights and interests of the data subject against the
legitimate interests of disclosure, basis f. We do not believe that the
legitimate interests in disclosure outweigh the interests or fundamental
rights and freedoms of the data subjects. Disclosure would therefore
breach data protection principle (a), which requires personal data to be
processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the
data subjects. As such, section 40(2) and (3A) of the FOIA is engaged and
it is unlawful for NICE to disclose the information requested.

 

We have therefore redacted some names and initials from the attached
documents.

 

 2. Briefing/advice papers provided on Evusheld, including horizon
scanning outputs, in relation to the RAPID C-19 meetings of 9 and 16
February 2022

 

I can confirm that we do hold information that falls within the scope of
this part of your request. Some of the information that we hold is in the
attached PDF documents, marked as docs c and d (one briefing document and
one report). Some of this information is highlighted as commercial in
confidence, however this information is no longer confidential.

 

We do hold further information that falls within this part of your
request, relating to the ‘horizon scanning outputs’, however we consider
that this information is exempt under section 21 of the Freedom of
Information Act, as we consider that it is already reasonably accessible
to you.

 

As background, information is published by the National Institute for
Health and Care Research Innovation Observatory (NIHRIO). NIHRIO scans all
medicines in clinical trials for COVID, and the information held is found
in the publicly available dashboard here: [1]COVID-19 Therapeutics - NIHR.
This data was used as a source for the attached briefing documents but was
not included with the papers for the meetings referred to.

 

I hope this information is useful. If you have any questions on this
response you are welcome to contact the enquiry handling team at
[2][NICE request email].

If you are unhappy with this response and want an internal review of how
we handled your request, you must write to us within 40 working days of
our response. Send your request to: Associate Director, Corporate Office,
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2nd Floor, 2 Redman
Place, London, E20 1JQ or email: [3][email address].

 

When we receive your request, we will send you an acknowledgement within 5
working days.

 

The Associate Director, Corporate Office, will review your complaint and
send you a full reply usually within 20 working days. If you are
dissatisfied with the outcome of this review, you can apply directly to
the Information Commissioner for a decision at: The Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF.

Kind regards,

 

Victoria

 

Communications manager

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

Level 1A | City Tower | Piccadilly Plaza | Manchester M1 4BT | United
Kingdom

 

 

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