Request For Doctor Medical Staff Rankings Merit Experience And Expertise Organisational Structure And Related Information

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

Jameson.Scanlon

Dear General Medical Council,

I sincerely hope that, before rebutting any of the below articulated requests for information, you will seriously consider them in the light of public-interest (which may override an excessively bureaucratic tendency to deny information).

Below follows a partial rendition of requests for medical information concerning, in particular, current ranking of UK medical staff *AND* some indication of past degree grades AND transcripts of various individuals. The following is noted:

1) I am making a formal and legal Freedom of Information request via the www.whatdotheyknow.com website. There is a time limit to your response to this request for information.

2) My email correspondence shows that, due to geographical accident, I have previously requested such information for the West Yorkshire area. However, it is CLEARLY in the public interest that such information be available for the entire Geography of the UK. You will probably respond that the cost of doing this is "excessive", etc... - to which I would respond that if a single Freedom of Information request, by necessity, is reflective of a large class of legitimate Freedom of Information Requests, then responding to one FoI request comprehensively will likely save you money and time in the future by sparing you other FoI request responses, and processing time associated with those other pre-empted FoI requests. A further counter would be that there are some Medical Specialisms which are so rarified that it would require complete geographical coverage (over the UK) of those specialisms to indicate who offers coverage for even a small geographical region (like West Yorkshire/Leeds).

3) I will endeavour to COLLATE past email correspondence on this issue (25 pages worth - I am considering adding this correspondence to the current FoI request as it would be informative for the public).

4) I will likely be satisfied with information for the Yorkshire region for now BUT I imagine that, at some point in the future, you will have to present the above requested information for the totality of the UK (which would be an interesting past-time that could very well take someone a lifetime to complete in totality).

5) The essence of this request is that there should be an ORGANISATIONAL CHART that makes it easy for the average member of the public (such as me) to determine which Surgeons/GPs/consultants have which level of meritocratic rank/experience/degree-class, etc... (notwithstanding the non-trivial issue of non-existent degree standardisation) within their geographical region (though this would be susceptible to the postcode lottery phenomenon*). Further, there should ALSO be a readily importable file format indicating the above information (such as a .csv comma separable/separated variable file or a .xls excel file or .ods Open Office Spreadsheet file) which provides an open-source equivalent of the above information.

6) I hope that the NHS-GMC complex will endeavour to ensure that, whatever response is sent to this FoI request, that that response be OPEN SOURCE and OPENLY disseminable and generally does not seek to restrict the free flow of information by locking it into a proprietary format or using proprietary software.

7) There is an online database on the GMC website called LRMP which you might argue contains at least some of the information which I request. However, I note the following :
i) Obtaining the collated and integrated visual format (ie: ORGANISATIONAL CHART) for the information that I am requested would be unreasonably prohibitive for an individual patient, or member of the public. Hence such a response would NOT deal with the Essential character of this FoI.
ii) The LRMP does not seem to indicate degree class or grade from the certifying institution.
iii) An 'obliquely' important issue of Medical Degree Standardisation still holds.
iv) The Data Infrastructure associated with the accessing of the LRMP takes a prohibitively long time. The GMC does provide a LRMP
subscription, with Data Types as indicated below (a .csv file) BUT the data available doesn't indicate Degree-Classification, let alone Degree-Transcript breakdown (which might provide an indication of specialism leanings). One also has to pay for the VERY-LIMITED information it SEEMS to offer (according to
20140317_LRMP_Download_User_Guide__Order_form_and_Licence_v2.pdf_55528807.pdf (about £600.00 per year for an individual subscription?).

8) For surgeons, there would presumably be MUCH MORE information beyond degree classification. Everything ranging from success rates, to attainment on Continuing-Professional-Development courses to Publications lists where relevant.

There are arguments that this information should already be available. This information is not currently available as far as I'm aware.

Yours faithfully,
Jameson.Scanlon

Best wishes, JS
PS - I will probably be sending a similar request for Dentists to the GDC....

FOI, General Medical Council

Dear Mr Scanlon

Your information request F14/6342/EH

Thank you for your email of 26 May asking for information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

We will consider your request and give you the information as soon as we
can, normally within the 20 working-day limit set by the FOIA.  

Please note that there may be some information which we cannot release to
you under the FOIA. If this is the case, we will let you know why and
state the relevant exemptions given in the FOIA. We will also give you
information about how to appeal our decision. 

I have allocated your request to Elizabeth Hiley. If you have any
questions, please contact her on 0161 923 6314 or email
[1][email address].

Yours sincerely 

Miss Sadie Jones

Information Assistant

[2][email address]

0161 250 6889

 

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

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Elizabeth Hiley (0161 923 6314), General Medical Council

Our reference: F14/6342/EH

Dear Jameson.Scanlon

Thank you for your email in which you request information regarding "Rankings Merit Experience And Expertise Organisational Structure", in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In terms of doctors (we only register doctors to practice medicine in the UK; not all 'medical staff'); in accordance with section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA we do not hold the information requested, with the exception of information recorded on degree certificates, as per the below.

In terms of 'degree class'; a doctor's degree certificate may include this information. Copies of degree certificates held for registered doctors are not publicly available under the FOIA. The exemption that applies in this case is:

Section 40(2) by virtue of Section 40(3)(a)(i) – Personal Information. This relates to information requested which is about a third party, and the disclosure of which would be in breach of the Principles of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). In this instance we consider that the disclosure of this type of information would breach the First Principle, which requires that the processing of data is fair and lawful. We consider that the conditions in Schedule 2 of the DPA, relating to the processing of personal data, are not met therefore the release of the information you have requested would be unlawful.

If you wish to appeal against this decision, please set out your grounds in writing and send to Julian Graves, Information Access Manager at [email address]. You also have the right of appeal to the Information Commissioner, the independent regulator of the FOIA. Contact details are available at www.ico.org.uk.

I should add that the information available on our online register for doctors (www.gmc-uk.org) indicates the country, university and year of qualification and whether the doctor is on the GP or specialist register (along with the doctor's specialism).

Yours sincerely

Elizabeth Hiley
Information Access Officer
Telephone: 0161 923 6314
Email: [email address]

Unless otherwise expressly agreed by the sender of this email, this communication may contain privileged or confidential information which is exempt from disclosure under UK law. This email and its attachments may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it has been sent.

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