Tests extending the shelf-life of PPE
Dear NHS England,
In March 2020 a significant quantity of masks (fluid resistant surgical masks) and respirators (FFP3) were issued to healthcare workers from the PPE stockpile which were well past their expiry date. Staff were reassured that the PPE was safe and had undergone “stringent tests”.
I refer to the letter by Professor Keith Willett (NHS Strategic Incident Director) to Chief Executives of all NHS Trusts (etc) dated 20 March 2020, Public approval reference: 001559.
In Section 4 (Shelf life of PPE items) Prof Willett states that “Some products may appear to have out-of-date ‘use by/expiration’ dates or have relabelled ‘use by/expiration’ dates. Please be assured products being issued have passed stringent tests that demonstrate they are safe.”
He further confirms that the NHS has been ”working with … the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) who … were content with our assessment that these are safe to use by NHS staff.”
There are 3 elements to my FoI request:
1) Please provide the laboratory reports and any other documents which were relied upon to form the conclusion that they were safe. These should confirm:
(a) Whether the laboratory/laboratories which conducted the tests were UKAS-accredited for this type of testing;
(b) The actual number of respirators tested and how it was ensured that the sample was statistically representative;
(c) That the test methods set out in EN 149:2001+A1:2009 were used or, if not, precisely what test methodology was used;
2) Please would you also confirm the full range of manufacturers involved (e.g. 3M, others?) and provide me with copies of any correspondence that NHS had with those manufacturers (as the experts in their products) about the continuation of use beyond the expiry date.
3) Please would you provide copies of any correspondence that NHS had with the HSE concerning the continuation of use beyond the expiry date.
For the avoidance of doubt I am only concerned with FFP3 respirators and Type IIR (Fluid Resistant) surgical masks.
Yours faithfully,
David Osborn
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Dear David Osborn,
NHS England has assessed your communication as a request under the Freedom
of Information (FOI) Act 2000. Your request is being dealt with under the
terms of the FOI Act and will be answered within twenty working days. Your
reference number is FOI-2308-2009693.
For further information regarding the FOI Act, please refer to the website
of the [1]Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). For further information
regarding NHS England, and the information we publish, please visit [2]our
website.
If you have any queries about this request or wish to contact us again,
please email [3][NHS England request email] and the message will be
forwarded appropriately. Please remember to quote the above reference
number in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
Freedom of Information
NHS England
PO Box 16738
REDDITCH
B97 9PT
Tel: 0300 311 22 33
Email: [4][NHS England request email]
Dear FOICRM (NHS ENGLAND - X24),
Thank you for your reply (22 August) to my FoI request submitted 2 August.
My understanding of the law is that you are expected to reply within 20 working days of the original request being received, not 20 working days starting 3 weeks after the original request was submitted.
Your response to me should therefore be with me by the end of this month, August 2023.
Yours sincerely,
David Osborn
Dear David Osborn,
We refer to your email of 2 August 2023 in which you requested
information under the FOI Act from NHS England.
Your request
You made the following request:
“In March 2020 a significant quantity of masks (fluid resistant surgical
masks) and respirators (FFP3) were issued to healthcare workers from the
PPE stockpile which were well past their expiry date. Staff were reassured
that the PPE was safe and had undergone “stringent tests”.
I refer to the letter by Professor Keith Willett (NHS Strategic Incident
Director) to Chief Executives of all NHS Trusts (etc) dated 20 March 2020,
Public approval reference: 001559.
In Section 4 (Shelf life of PPE items) Prof Willett states that “Some
products may appear to have out-of-date ‘use by/expiration’ dates or have
relabelled ‘use by/expiration’ dates. Please be assured products being
issued have passed stringent tests that demonstrate they are safe.”
He further confirms that the NHS has been ”working with … the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) who … were content with our assessment that these
are safe to use by NHS staff.”
There are 3 elements to my FOI request:
1) Please provide the laboratory reports and any other documents which
were relied upon to form the conclusion that they were safe. These should
confirm:
(a) Whether the laboratory/laboratories which conducted the tests were
UKAS-accredited for this type of testing;
(b) The actual number of respirators tested and how it was ensured
that the sample was statistically representative;
(c) That the test methods set out in EN 149:2001+A1:2009 were used or,
if not, precisely what test methodology was used;
2) Please would you also confirm the full range of manufacturers involved
(e.g. 3M, others?) and provide me with copies of any correspondence that
NHS had with those manufacturers (as the experts in their products) about
the continuation of use beyond the expiry date.
3) Please would you provide copies of any correspondence that NHS had with
the HSE concerning the continuation of use beyond the expiry date.
For the avoidance of doubt I am only concerned with FFP3 respirators and
Type IIR (Fluid Resistant) surgical masks.”
Decision
NHS England does not hold the information requested.
It may help if we first explain that NHS England is not the same as ‘the
NHS in England’. The NHS in England is not a single organisation but is
made up of a range of organisations such as Hospitals, [1]Integrated Care
Boards (ICBs), and Ambulance Trusts.
Information on the types of information NHS England holds can be found on
our [2]website and [3]publication scheme. For further information on the
NHS, its structure and other NHS organisations please refer to the
[4]NHS.uk web page.
This information may be held by the [5]Department of Health & Social Care
(DHSC). As such you may wish to contact them directly. You can contact
them via their [6]website.
Copyright
NHS England operates under the terms of the Open Government Licence (OGL).
Terms and conditions can be found on the following link:
[7]http://www.england.nhs.uk/terms-and-cond...
Review rights
If you consider that your request for information has not been properly
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or the decision. A senior member of NHS England’s staff, who has not
previously been involved with your request, will undertake that review.
If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of any internal review, you may
complain to the Information Commissioner for a decision on whether your
request for information has been dealt with in accordance with the FOI
Act.
A request for an internal review should be submitted in writing to
[8][NHS England request email]
Yours sincerely,
Freedom of Information
NHS England
Dear NHS England,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of NHS England's handling of my FOI request 'Tests extending the shelf-life of PPE'.
You say that NHS England does not hold the information requested. This comes as a surprise, since you clearly did hold the information in March 2020 and you should therefore still have it now, even if it has been archived or transferred to computer backup systems from which it should be readily retrievable.
I therefore do not consider that my initial FoI request has been properly handled and I suggest that insufficient attempts have been made to locate the documents I require. My reasoning for this is as follows:
In order for Professor Willett to have made the statements that he made (see my original FoI request at the address below) he must have held the supportive information concerning the 'stringent tests' which he publicly mentions in his letter of 20 March 2020 to the whole of NHS.
The information that I am requesting MUST, therefore, have been held by NHS England and NHS Improvement at that time. I cannot imagine someone of Professor Willett's integrity making something like that up and publishing such an important statement without having the evidence to support it.
If it was held then, you should still hold it now. If not please explain why you held it then but no longer hold it now.
If you didn't hold it then, please explain how Professor Willett made the statement that he did.
Professor Willett explicitly states that the HSE were content with "OUR ASSESSMENT" that these (past-expiry-date) items of PPE were safe to use. "OUR" must mean his organisation i.e. "NHS England & NHS Improvement". He must therefore have had some correspondence with HSE expressing their 'contentment'. By way of reminder, I am also requesting a copy of this correspondence with HSE.
In your reply to me you explain of the manifold organisations which we, the public, collectively call the NHS - hospitals, ambulance trusts etc. I know this very well and it seems that you are trying to suggest that I may have directed my request to the wrong entity in NHS England. To be clear, Professor Willett, in his letter signed himself as the NHS Strategic Incident Director of "NHS England and NHS Improvement", not a hospital, nor an ambulance trust.
If "NHS England and NHS Improvement" is a different entity from "NHS England" then, given your duty to assist FoI requestors, you should pass my request to "NHS England and NHS Improvement" and tell me that you have done so and who specifically will answer me. You should not try and divert me away to a completely different organisation such as DHSC. Professor Willett does not work for DHSC. He works for NHS England - so might I suggest that the most logical thing for you to do is to simply go and ask him for the information requested in my FoI and then send it to me without further prevarication and diversion.
Please also send me your procedure/policy for handling FoI complaints so that I can see the escalation process and timescales involved.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/t...
Yours faithfully,
David Osborn
*THIS IS AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE - YOUR EMAIL WILL BE RESPONDED TO BY A MEMBER OF
THE TEAM ALSO**
Thank you for your email.
We are currently receiving an extremely high volume of enquiries.
You may find the following information helpful.
How can the Customer Contact Centre help me?
We’re here to support patients and their representatives with enquiries
about healthcare services.
We can also help with enquiries or complaints about healthcare in prison,
military healthcare and some specialised services that support people with
a range of rare and complex conditions.
You can find out how to feedback or make a complaint about an NHS service
here:
[1]https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/co...
Covid-19 enquiries
For information about coronavirus (COVID-19), including information about
the COVID-19 vaccine, go to
the [2]https://www.nhs.uk/covid-19-advice-and-s.... You can also
find guidance and support on the [3]GOV.UK website.
If you are contacting us about new COVID-19 treatments, more information
is available on the [4]NHS website.
Does the NHS England Customer Contact Centre provide medical advice?
No. Our advisors are not clinically trained and are unable to provide
medical advice.
For help from a GP, visit your GP surgery’s website, use an online service
to contact your GP, or call the surgery.
For urgent medical help, use the [5]NHS 111 online service, or call 111 if
you are unable to get help online. For life-threatening emergencies, call
999 for an ambulance.
If you need help for a mental health crisis or emergency, you can get
24-hour support and advice. To find out where to get urgent help for
mental health visit the [6]NHS website.
There is more information about getting urgent medical help on the [7]NHS
website.
How do you use my information?
NHS England’s privacy notice explains how we use, share and store your
personal information. You can find this on our
website: [8]https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/pr...
Thank you for your email.
NHS England Customer Contact Centre
Dear NHS England,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to follow up my request an internal review of NHS England's handling of my FOI request 'Tests extending the shelf-life of PPE'.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/t...
May I respectfully remind you that I requested an internal review on 24th September and have waited patiently ever since. You were supposed to have replied within 20 working days (or at least informed me when I might expect a reply).
Please would you therefore provide the outcome of your internal review.
Thanking you in advance.
Yours faithfully,
David Osborn
*THIS IS AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE - YOUR EMAIL WILL BE RESPONDED TO BY A MEMBER OF
THE TEAM ALSO**
Thank you for your email.
We are currently receiving an extremely high volume of enquiries.
You may find the following information helpful.
How can the Customer Contact Centre help me?
We’re here to support patients and their representatives with enquiries
about healthcare services.
We can also help with enquiries or complaints about healthcare in prison,
military healthcare and some specialised services that support people with
a range of rare and complex conditions.
You can find out how to feedback or make a complaint about an NHS service
here:
[1]https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/co...
Covid-19 enquiries
For information about coronavirus (COVID-19), including information about
the COVID-19 vaccine, go to
the [2]https://www.nhs.uk/covid-19-advice-and-s.... You can also
find guidance and support on the [3]GOV.UK website.
If you are contacting us about new COVID-19 treatments, more information
is available on the [4]NHS website.
Does the NHS England Customer Contact Centre provide medical advice?
No. Our advisors are not clinically trained and are unable to provide
medical advice.
For help from a GP, visit your GP surgery’s website, use an online service
to contact your GP, or call the surgery.
For urgent medical help, use the [5]NHS 111 online service, or call 111 if
you are unable to get help online. For life-threatening emergencies, call
999 for an ambulance.
If you need help for a mental health crisis or emergency, you can get
24-hour support and advice. To find out where to get urgent help for
mental health visit the [6]NHS website.
There is more information about getting urgent medical help on the [7]NHS
website.
How do you use my information?
NHS England’s privacy notice explains how we use, share and store your
personal information. You can find this on our
website: [8]https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/pr...
Thank you for your email.
NHS England Customer Contact Centre
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