Royal London Hospital Beds Figures and some PFI figures

The request was partially successful.

Dear Barts and The London NHS Trust,

With reference to this article in the East London Advertiser on the
4th April 2011, yesterday

"More than 100 beds to go at new East End hospital - before they
are even opened

By Nadia Sam-Daliri
Monday, April 4, 2011
3:42 PM

Campaign group Health Emergency says cuts to the NHS have left
Bart’s and the London NHS trust, which is behind the new Royal
London hospital in Whitechapel, with a bill for hospital space it
“cannot afford to run”.

The new £1billion construction is being paid for through a private
finance initiative (PFI).

This means the developers, Skanska and Innisfree will put up the
cash now and be paid back over 42 years.

But Health Emergency says the PFI – which is the most expensive for
any hospital in the country - will leave the trust paying back five
times the amount it owes.

Dr John Lister, Health Emergency’s information director, said: “The
PFI is a horrendously flawed system. Costs will go up year by year.
Jobs and treatment for patients are the things that will be
sacrificed.”

The group said that cuts imposed by central government place the
trust in a difficult position, as it has less cash coming in but
soaring debts.

Earlier this year Barts and the London NHS trust announced it was
scrapping over 600 jobs to deal with government cuts.

The trust said it is misleading to describe the cost of any new
hospital in terms of bed numbers.

The PFI provides the “best solution” to replacing outdated
facilities, it said.

The new hospital will have 32 operating theatres, improved
intensive care wards and cutting edge equipment for diagnosis and
treatment.

A spokeswoman added: “[The investment] covers some of our clinics
for outpatients - the majority of the patients we see and treat -
who do not require inpatient beds.

“It is crucial to note that over the 42-year lifetime of our PFI
contract, almost half the costs are associated with vital support
services, such as cleaning, catering and patient transport, which
all acute trusts incur as part of their normal operational
expenditure.”
http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/ne...

Please could you provide the following statistics for numbers of
beds within the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel;

1. Please list current figures for beds within the above mentioned
hospital - please list figures stating ward names first, then
amount of beds in each ward, then any further divisions within that
ward, ie; acute, intensive care etc.. Finally listing a total for
all beds.

2. Please list future figures for beds - using where possible the
same criteria as in the request above ie; ward names etc - that are
at present forecast once the new sections of the hospital are
complete.

3. Please list the current total yearly running costs of the
Hospital at present leaving out any figures associated with the new
build cost.

4. Please list the future forecast/estimated total yearly running
cost showing any and all payments for build cost including interest
payments to building companies such as Skanska etc as part of the
PFI contract.

5. Please list the total cost of the regeneration of the Royal
London Hospital Site, also detailing payments (forecasted/estimated
or otherwise) per year for the 42 year period listed in the East
London Advertiser Article above as part of the PFI contract.

Please when showing the final response could you include the actual
content of this emails request as part of that response? This is
for your own FOI website readers use, as just showing responses can
sometimes leave people perusing your site confused as to what the
nature and content of the requests actually state.

Yours faithfully,

Muhammed Iqbal

Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Request for Information [FOI/102/011]

Thank you for your request for information.

Your request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale.

The Act defines a number of exemptions which may prevent the release of the information you have requested. We will assess the material and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information may not be released. We will tell you if that is so.

If the information you request refers to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release the information to you. We will let you know if that is the case and give you an indication of the timescale for providing the information.

There may a fee payable for the information you have requested. The fee must be paid before the information is released. We will inform you if this is the case.

Information that we may provide in response to this Freedom of Information Act request will be subject to copyright protection. You may ask if you can re-use the information, perhaps for commercial purposes. Without the necessary permission, you can breach our copyright. To enquire about re-using Trust information, please write to us at the above address or email [email address].

If you have any queries then please contact us at [email address].

If you are dissatisfied on how your request has been handled, you can complain in writing to:
Remi Ogbe, Information Governance Manager, Barts and The London NHS Trust, 1st Floor, 9 Prescot Street, E1 8PR. Email: [email address] <mailto:[email address]>

If, after we have addressed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied with how we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to the Information Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Redfern
Corporate Services
Barts and The London NHS Trust

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Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Re: Request for information FOI/102/11

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your request and for any inconvenience caused.

I regret to inform you that I am unable to provide a response at the present time however I can assure you that your request is being progressed and a response will be issued in due course.

If you have any queries then please contact us at [email address].

If you are dissatisfied on how your request has been handled, you can complain in writing to:
Remi Ogbe, Information Governance Manager, Barts and The London NHS Trust, 1st Floor, 9 Prescot Street, E1 8PR. Email: [email address] <mailto:[email address]>

If, after we have addressed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied with how we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to the Information Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Redfern
Corporate Services
Barts and The London NHS Trust

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to_go_at_new_east_end_hospital_before_they_are_even_opened_1_> 853975

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Muhammed Iqbal

Dear Redfern Catherine,

You do understand that you are now officially in breach of the Act and that because you failed to respond within time, you must now respond in full to my request without refusing any part of it.

Yours sincerely,

Muhammed Iqbal

Muhammed Iqbal

Dear Redfern Catherine,

Why are you ignoring me in this way?

Yours sincerely,

Muhammed Iqbal

Muhammed Iqbal

Dear Redfern Catherine,

Why are you treating my request in this way?, why are you ignoring me?

I do not understand why you are treating me like this, by law you should have responded over a month ago and you still ignore my repeated attempts for you to respond.

Yours sincerely,

Muhammed Iqbal

Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Thank you for your emails.

Please accept our apologies that you have not yet received a response.

Unfortunately, I am still not in a position to provide the information
you requested, however I hope to be able to do so shortly.

I was not able to keep you regularly updated as I had no news to give
you since my last update, apart from the fact that your request was
still being taken forward and has not been forgotten about. I am sorry
if you felt that you had been ignored, I can assure you this is
certainly not the case.

However, I do apologise for the inconvenience this has caused to you.

Should you wish to complain about the Trust's handling of your FOI
request please be advised that you may do so by emailing our Information
Governance Manager at [email address] .

If, after we have addressed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied with
how we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to the Information
Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,
Catherine Redfern
Corporate Services
Barts and The London NHS Trust

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Dear Redfern Catherine,

Please clarify, is this request now 43 working days overdue from the alloted 20 working day timeframe as set out by the terms of the Freedom Of Information Act.

Can you not see that this is a clear abuse of the law?

Yours sincerely,

Muhammed Iqbal

Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Thank you for your email.

I confirm that the response is overdue. Please accept our apologise for
this.

The request is being taken forward and has not been forgotten about.

Should you wish to complain about the Trust's handling of your FOI
request please be advised that you may do so by emailing our Information
Governance Manager at [email address].

If, after we have addressed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied
withhow we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to theInformation
Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Redfern
Corporate Services
Barts and The London NHS Trust

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Dear Redfern Catherine,

Can you give me some indication of why you are refusing to answer this request? Is it too complicated for you to answer or something?

I cannot understand why you dont seem to care about breaking the law in this way?

Yours sincerely,

Muhammed Iqbal

Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

I out of the office until 1st August.

Please direct your email as follows or see notes below:

FOI:
External: Please email [email address]
Internal staff: Thank you for your help, I will reply on my return from leave.

JOB VACANCY:
Thank you for your interest, I will reply to your query on my return from leave.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT:
Please refer to our intranet page for further guidance and forms: http://bltintranet/A-Z/Recordsmanagement...

If you would like advice on records in your office please send me a meeting request and I will endeavour to meet with you in August.

Please email any requests for files or advice to "Records Management" in internal Trust address book. If it is an emergency plese email as above and then telephone Martyn Steers or Mustapha Haruna.

The Records Centre is unable to accept any new boxes of records until the week starting 1st August. You may still send transfer forms but they can not be acted on.

INFORMATION GOVERNANCE:
Please contact Mustapha Haruna, Martyn Steers or Remi Ogbe or see the intranet page:
http://bltintranet/A-Z/InformationGovern...

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If you are requesting a new all_trust shared drive folder please complete the form and follow instructions there.
http://bltintranet/A-Z/ict/documents/ICT...

If you are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act, please resubmit your request to our dedicated enquiry address: [email address] so that it can receive prompt attention.

Ogbe Remi, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Thank you again for your request for information.

Again, please accept our sincere apologies for the delay in replying and the inconvenience caused.

As explained please be advised that should you wish to complain about the Trust's response to your FOI Request, you may do so by contacting our Information Governance Manager at the [email address] email.

We are now in a position to provide responses to your queries.

Please see below for the details.

1. Please list current figures for beds within the Royal London Hospital - please list figures stating ward names first, then amount of beds in each ward, then any further divisions within that ward, ie; acute, intensive care etc.. Finally listing a total for all beds.

The total of all beds is 718.

2. Please list future figures for beds - using where possible the same criteria as in the request above ie; ward names etc - that are at present forecast once the new sections of the hospital are complete.

The new Royal London Hospital has capacity for 862 beds. The details of the exact allocation of the beds are still being worked out currently and so it is not possible at present to provide a final figure.


With regard to bed numbers, it is very misleading to describe the cost of any new hospital, or the quality of its clinical care, in terms of bed numbers.

Our £1 billion investment for the people of East London and beyond covers the full range and quantity of facilities you would expect for state of the art new hospitals, including 32 new operating theatres as well as improved intensive care wards and the latest advanced equipment for diagnosis and treatment - including the most modern scanners available.

It also covers some of our clinics for outpatients - the majority of the patients we see and treat - who do not require inpatient beds. And even though advances in clinical care mean that many inpatients have to spend less time in hospital these days, the investment still includes facilities for an increasing number of inpatients. We have plans, for example, to increase the number of intensive care beds at the Trust.

3. Please list the current total yearly running costs of the Hospital at present leaving out any figures associated with the new build cost.

Our Annual Reports detail the total operating costs of the Trust as a whole.

The 2010/11 Annual Report is not published yet, but the 2009/10 Report can be accessed on our website, and this information is in the Annual Accounts. http://www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/asse... <https://bltmail.bltnet.co.uk/exchweb/bin...> Please see page 35 which details operating expenses.

Please note that the figures given in the Annual Report relate to the Trust as a whole as the total yearly running costs of the Royal London Hospital have not been calculated.

In order to calculate the total yearly running costs of the Royal London Hospital specifically, we would have to undertake a major piece of analysis of large quantities of electronic and manual data. The workload involved would be extremely extensive and I am sorry to inform you that this would exceed the 'appropriate limit' as set out in fees regulations (the relevant exemption is s.12).

4. Please list the future forecast/estimated total yearly running cost showing any and all payments for build cost including interest payments to building companies such as Skanska etc as part of the PFI contract.

The total overall costs of the PFI project are detailed in the Full Business Case, which is on our website at the following address: http://www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/new-... <https://bltmail.bltnet.co.uk/exchweb/bin...> Please see document entitled Full Business Case 190309 <file://docs/fbc_version_11_clean_190309.pdf> (note, large download), sections 5.10 - 5.14.

Please note that the figures here relate to the Trust as a whole as the future forecast/estimated total yearly running cost for the Royal London Hospital specifically has not been calculated.

In order to calculate an estimate of the future forecast/estimated total yearly running costs of the Royal London Hospital specifically, we would have to undertake a major piece of analysis of large quantities of electronic and manual data. The workload involved would be extremely extensive and we are sorry to inform you that this would exceed the 'appropriate limit' as set out in fees regulations (the relevant exemption is s.12).

5. Please list the total cost of the regeneration of the Royal London Hospital Site, also detailing payments (forecasted/estimated or otherwise) per year for the 42 year period listed in the East London Advertiser Article above as part of the PFI contract.

Please see below the unitary charge costs for service and construction for both redevelopments.

Please note that this is for the whole project as service costs and construction/regeneration costs are all wrapped up into a single unitary charge.

We have not calculated the total cost of the regeneration of the Royal London Hospital site specifically. In order to calculate an estimate of the future forecast/estimated total yearly running costs of the Royal London Hospital specifically, we would have to undertake a major piece of analysis of large quantities of electronic and manual data. The workload involved would be extremely extensive and I am sorry to inform you that this would exceed the 'appropriate limit' as set out in fees regulations (the relevant exemption is s.12).

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

£m

£m

£m

£m

£m

£m

£m

U Annual UC at 2011/2012 prices

62.9

76.7

102.3

102.9

112.3

115.0

115.4

It is crucial to note that over the 42 year lifetime of our PFI contract, almost half the costs are associated with vital support services, such as cleaning, catering and patient transport, which all acute trusts incur as part of their normal operational expenditure.

Whilst there is a wider governmental review of PFI across the public sector, no-one would begrudge the people of east London these new hospital facilities. They provide the best solution to the need to replace outdated, awkwardly configured, facilities with fantastic new hospitals that meet the challenge of providing healthcare to our local community, which has some of the most challenging health needs of any in the UK.

If you have any queries then please contact us at [email address].
If you are dissatisfied on how your request has been handled, you can complain in writing to:
Remi Ogbe, Information Governance Manager, Barts and The London NHS Trust, 1st Floor, 9 Prescot Street, E1 8PR. Email: [email address] <mailto:[email address] <mailto:[email address]> >

If, after we have addressed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied with how we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to the Information Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk <file://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/> .

Yours sincerely,
Catherine Redfern
Corporate Services
Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Barts and The London NHS Trust,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Barts and The London NHS Trust's handling of my FOI request 'Royal London Hospital Beds Figures and some PFI figures'.

The time for requests as set out under the law is 20 working days, you took over 69 working days, and still refused to answer the request fully. I believe that as you didn't not ask for clarification or refused parts of the request within that time frame of 20 days then you are without doubt fully in breach of the terms of that act. I feel as if you have abused my trust in a system that is supposed to support my rights as a United Kingdom citizen, these rights are protected by law and i feel that a full investigation needs to be carried out detailing everything about the handling of this particular request and demanding a full and frank disclosure of each point of my request as I fully disagree with you now deciding after all of this time that you want to refuse parts of this request. This should have been done sooner, and to state now that time is a factor in refusal when you have gone three times over the limit and produced a paltry response with key questions refused and others only answered half-heartedly is an insult and an abuse of my rights.

As part of the Internal review process I would like a full breakdown of the costs and time taken in answering this request so far, detailing every aspect of the requests time with yourselves.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ro...

Yours faithfully,

Muhammed Iqbal

Steers Martyn, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Thank you for your email to the Trust's FOI mailbox.
The FOI Officer is currently on leave so there will be a delay before
your request is formally acknowledged and allocated a reference number.
This is to confirm that your email has been received and will be dealt
with in due course.

Martyn Steers
Deputy Information Governance Manager
Barts and the London NHS Trust
3rd floor, Room 306, John Harrison House
The Royal London Hospital
Whitechapel
Telephone Switchboard: 0207 377 7000
(Internal 14-3139)
Trust Email: [email address]
NHSmail: [email address]

"Privileged/confidential information may be contained in this email and
is intended only for the use of the addressees named. If you are not a
named addressee, the person responsible for delivering it to one of
these people, or you have received this email by mistake, you may not
copy or deliver this to anyone else either electronically or by other
means. Only forward this message to further recipients if you are
certain the message author(s) have no objections. If you have received
this email by mistake, please notify the sender immediately and delete
the entire message and attachments."
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

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Steers Martyn, Barts and The London NHS Trust

Dear Mr Iqbal,

Thank you for your email into the FOI mailbox.

Unfortunately, the FOI Officer is currently on leave. However, I have
passed your email on to the Head of Information Governance whom conducts
the internal review and they will be in contact you at the earliest
opportunity.

Regards

Martyn Steers
Deputy Information Governance Manager
Barts and the London NHS Trust
3rd floor, Room 306, John Harrison House
The Royal London Hospital
Whitechapel
Telephone Switchboard: 0207 377 7000
(Internal 14-3139)
Trust Email: [email address]
NHSmail: [email address]

"Privileged/confidential information may be contained in this email and
is intended only for the use of the addressees named. If you are not a
named addressee, the person responsible for delivering it to one of
these people, or you have received this email by mistake, you may not
copy or deliver this to anyone else either electronically or by other
means. Only forward this message to further recipients if you are
certain the message author(s) have no objections. If you have received
this email by mistake, please notify the sender immediately and delete
the entire message and attachments."
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

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Redfern Catherine, Barts and The London NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Iqbal,

I am writing in response to your email requesting an internal review
into how your request under the Freedom of Information Act was handled.

Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for being dissatisfied with
the way your request for made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
was dealt with, and the unacceptable delay in responding to your
request.

With regard to your request, in my capacity as Information Governance
Manager I have undertaken an internal review into how your request for
information has been handled. The delay has been due to a vacancy in the
team that deal with FOI requests, and the increasing number of intricate
requests the team receive. With regard to all the information you
requested, please see attached the breakdown of beds, which was omitted
erroneously.

I also reviewed the reasoning for the refusal to supply the future
forecast/estimated total yearly running costs of the Royal London
Hospital, and uphold the decision, as the workload would involve
disproportionate effort and this would exceed the 'appropriate limit' as
set out in fees regulations, hence the application of section 12 of the
Act.

Unfortunately, I can not supply you with a breakdown of costs and time
taken to answer this request, as we do not record this information.

Once again please accept our apology for this delay, if you remain
dissatisfied with how we have responded, you are entitled to appeal to
the Information Commissioner (Tel: 01625 545 745). Details are shown at
http://www.ico.gov.uk/.


Yours sincerely,

Remi Ogbe

Information Governance Manager
Barts and The London NHS Trust

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