SARs
Dear Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust,
I am currently conducting a benchmarking exercise looking at Subject Access compliance within the NHS to identify any trends that correlate to higher compliance levels and best practice. Please can you provide me with the following information for the 2022/23 financial year.
1. How Many Subject Access Requests have been received by your organisation? (Please provide only those requests relating to Health and Social records where possible i.e Exclusion of requests for HR information. If this is not possible please provide the total number of all requests).
2. Please provide the number of these requests which exceeded the one calendar month timeframe for processing (or those which have exceeded a total of three calendar months where an extension has been issued).
3. How many of the total requests received were issued an extension.
4. What system(s) is currently used to process / log these requests.
5. Do you have any software or systems for redaction purposes.
6. Please provide the Number of staff within the team processing (logging, facilitating and releasing) these requests including the relevant Agenda for Change grades. Please provide WTE and HC.
7. Please provide the department in which the team processing these requests resides. If multiple teams/ departments process Subject Access Request, please provide details for both.
8. Are your organisations medical records paper based, electronic or a mixture.
9. If electronic do you use a single EPR or multiple sources?
10. Are staff processing requests provided with a list of systems/ default locations to check in order to obtain the records requested.
11. Are all records reviewed prior to disclosure? If so who are these reviews conducted by.
12. Which roles carry out redaction of records prior to disclosure.
13. Do you issue or make available to data subjects a Subject Access Request, request form? (including any web based forms).
14. If you have a procedure or standard operating procedure covering the processing of these requests can you please provide this.
Would like to receive a copy of the anonymised Benchmarking report, please advise accordingly within your response.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Walmsley
Dear Jonathan,
Re: FOI request ref: F23/0114
Thank you for your freedom of information request.
Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days after the date of receipt 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.
In some cases 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 choose not to make 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.
Kind regards
Freedom of Information Office
: [Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust request email]
+ Trust Headquarters, Health and Wellbeing Centre, Sandwell General
+ Hospital, Lyndon, West Bromwich B71 4HJ
Dear Jonathan,
Re: FOI Request ref: F23/0114
Thank you for your freedom of information request.
The Trust has received the following Freedom of Information request which
I believe falls within your business area:
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, please could you return
this information to me by no later than 5pm on 05.06.2023.
I am currently conducting a benchmarking exercise looking at Subject
Access compliance within the NHS to identify any trends that correlate to
higher compliance levels and best practice. Please can you provide me with
the following information for the 2022/23 financial year.
1. How Many Subject Access Requests have been received by your
organisation? (Please provide only those requests relating to Health
and Social records where possible i.e Exclusion of requests for HR
information. If this is not possible, please provide the total number
of all requests).
Year : 2022-23 (1) 1739
2022-23 (2) 1814
2022-23 (3) 1677
----
Grand Total : 5230
2. Please provide the number of these requests which exceeded the one
calendar month timeframe for processing (or those which have exceeded a
total of three calendar months where an extension has been issued).
Year : 2022-23 (1) 445
2022-23 (2) 367
2022-23 (3) 292
----
Grand Total : 1104
3. How many of the total requests received were issued an extension.
Year : 2022-23 (1) 108
2022-23 (2) 117
2022-23 (3) 57
---
Grand Total : 282
4. What system(s) is currently used to process / log these requests.
Ulysses
5. Do you have any software or systems for redaction purposes. The
software used for redacting YHP records was Igpr (Software) and Nitro Pro,
however we no longer use this software to redact.
6. Please provide the Number of staff within the team processing (logging,
facilitating and releasing) these requests including the relevant Agenda
for Change grades. Please provide WTE and HC. There are 7 staff that focus
on SARS ,including the 2 staff that primarily focus on the YHP sars.
However, they are part of a wider team of 12. As SARS is a big element of
the teams work other staff in the team will support logging, preparing and
or disclosure of records, as well as preparation of the Litigation cases
as and when required to do so, but these are checked and disclosed by the
litigation team. The standard SARS team who log, prepare and disclose
the records are AfC Band 3.
7. Please provide the department in which the team processing these
requests resides. If multiple teams/ departments process Subject Access
Request, please provide details for both.
Governance Support Unit within the Governance team. Legal team also
process SARS for claims against the Trust, the IG team also complete SARS
and may redact records.
8. Are your organisations medical records paper based, electronic or a
mixture. Former paper records have been scanned and now stored
electronically. Contemporaneous records are electronic.
9. If electronic do you use a single EPR or multiple sources? Unity is
used for clinical records in the acute setting. Scanned records are
stored in CSS. System one is used by GP practices and Physiotherapy,
Badgernet is used for Maternity, Medisoft (Eye Records) Mergepacs
(Radiology) Prism (neuro-phsyiology records) Emis for some GP
practices, we also have generic email addresses for specific photograph
requests stored within Medical Illustration department, we also have to
request any Audiology records via email to the audiology department, and
ITU charts directly from ITU.
10. Are staff processing requests provided with a list of systems/ default
locations to check in order to obtain the records requested. Yes.
11. Are all records reviewed prior to disclosure? If so who are these
reviews conducted by. No records are reviewed prior to disclosure
12. Which roles carry out redaction of records prior to disclosure.
Governance Support Unit Administrators however, we do not redact records
under normal circumstances. The IG team may redact SARS they process if
required.
13. Do you issue or make available to data subjects a Subject Access
Request, request form? (including any web based forms). We have 2 SAR
forms for access to records one is for a deceased patient the other for a
patient that is alive. We do send this electronically if it is requested
in this way.
14. If you have a procedure or standard operating procedure covering the
processing of these requests can you please provide this. These have not
yet been approved and therefore are not in a state to share. They are
currently undergoing testing.
Would like to receive a copy of the anonymised Benchmarking report, please
advise accordingly within your response. Yes please, to send to Sally
Arnold-Jones
I hope that the information provided in this email answers your query.
However, if you are dissatisfied with the response please contact the
Trust in the first instance with the details of your complaint so the
Trust can conduct an internal review. Please address such requests
to [1][Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust request email] or in writing to Kam Dhami,
Director of Governance, Trust Headquarters, Sandwell Hospital, Lyndon,
West Bromwich, B71 4HJ. Alternatively, if you remain unhappy with the
outcome you can appeal directly to the Information Commissioner at the
following address: [2]www.ico.gov.uk
Kind regards
Freedom of Information Office
[Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust request email]
+ Trust Headquarters, Health and Wellbeing Centre, Sandwell General
Hospital, Lyndon, West Bromwich B71 4HJ
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