Screening and Treatment of Iron Deficiency anaemia

The request was refused by Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.

Dear Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust,

I would like to request information regarding the screening and treatment of iron deficiency anaemia in patients listed for major elective blood loss surgery.

In the last 12 months available data, how many patients listed for major elective blood loss surgery were screened 6 weeks prior to the procedure for iron deficiency anaemia? How many patients were not?

Of the patients who were screened and anaemia was present had serum ferritin levels tested?

Of those patients diagnosed with iron-deficiency anaemia, how many were offered appropriate iron treatment?

Below are the OPCS codes to be considered when reviewing major elective blood loss surgery:
K453 W373 M022
K262 W383 L294
K255 W384 L601
H072 W374 L593
H333 Q074 L194
H071 Q075 L295
H336 W403 W371
H073 W402 W381
H074 M025 W941
M341 M021 W401
M343 M039

If at all possible, could you provide a break down for each answer by what CCG the patients came from?

Yours faithfully,

BEN HOLDSWORTH

:FOI, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your request to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which we are treating as a Freedom of Information request.

Please let us know if you have any further queries or information related to this request. Our reference number for the request is FOI 87698; please quote this on all correspondence.

Yours faithfully,

Freedom of Information Team
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
[Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust request email]

show quoted sections

:FOI, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Sir/Madam,

The Trust and the NHS are facing unprecedented challenges relating to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic at the current time, and the Trust resources have been prioritised to support our front-line colleagues who are working tremendously hard to provide care for our patients.
Therefore we would like to request an extension providing a response to your FOI request.

We hope hear from you soon.

Kind regards,

Freedom of Information Team
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
[Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust request email]

Subject Access Requests and Freedom of Information Requests during current Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Trust (GSTT) are committed to complying with ‘Right of Access’ requests made under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

However, the NHS is facing unprecedented challenges relating to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic at the current time, and our resources have been prioritised to support our front-line colleagues who are working tremendously hard to provide care for our patients.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has recognised the current situation in the NHS as being out of the ordinary. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-an....

At GSTT, while it is always our aim to be transparent and to work with a culture of openness, at this time, the care of our patients and the safety of our staff takes precedence. As a result of our prioritisation on supporting front-line colleagues, it is likely that responses to requests for information or records will be delayed, and it may sometimes take up to 3 months to respond to a Subject Access Request. Therefore  please can we ask  that you consider if your request is still required or can be delayed until after the this pandemic is over.

It should also be noted that we will not be able to provide copies of paper health records or have the ability to print or copy health records to complete access requests.

For the period of the Covid-19 lockdown, we can only process requests if they, in part or wholly, involve electronic health records systems which staff can access and extract data from.  We will therefore suspend all requests that wholly require paper health records to complete. We will also partially suspend any part of a request which requires health records  or any other content to be printed and scanned.

We apologise for this in advance, and will endeavour to provide you with as much information as we can, as soon as we are able.

For Freedom of Information requests, the Trust will continue to process these as normal, but again this will be dependent on the availability of staff, which could impact on timely delivery of FOI responses during this challenging period.

If you have a complaint linked to how we are dealing with requests, please contact the Trust Data Protection Officer at [email address]

show quoted sections

:FOI, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay.

Find attached our response to your request.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
[Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust request email]

show quoted sections