Thank you for your email and request for information.

Your request has been acknowledged. Normal Freedom of Information timescales apply from receipt of your request (20 working days) into this MEHT FOI mailbox.

I look forward to dealing with your request.

With kind regards
Rebecca Pascoe
Risk and Compliance Manager
01245 516595

Care, Excel, Innovate

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Information in this message may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our apologies; please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this e-mail or take any action in reliance on its contents: to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Please inform us that this message has gone astray before deleting it.

Content of emails received by this Trust will be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Unless the information is legally exempt from disclosure, confidentiality of this e-mail and your reply cannot be guaranteed. Thank you for your co-operation.

Mr Powling

Thank you for your request. At Broomfield Hospital, there are 2 units within maternity, a midwife lead unit and a consultant unit for higher risk births. The decision making process regarding VBAC is managed in accordance with the attached clinical guideline and the arrangments for the use of the pool is set out in section 23.

I regret that we don’t as yet have electronic medical records so I regret that we would be unable to provide specific data relating to VBAC patients requesting the pool and for how long as this would only be currently recorded in manual medical records on an individual basis.

We do not interrogate manual medical records for the purposes of answering FOI requests as this would constitute a "secondary use of data" ie it would be accessing confidential health records for purposes unrelated to the care of the patient for clinical audit or official research, which would therefore require patient consent.

We are in the process of implementing an electronic maternity record which will greatly facilitate the running of anonymised reports in the future.

If you are not satisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review by a senior member of the Trust staff who has had no involvement in dealing with your request. We aim to deal with FOI appeals within 20 days of receipt Emails should be clearly marked ‘Internal Review ' and sent to [email address] Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner. Further information is available at: Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK95AF Telephone: 01625 545 700 - www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

If you have any other queries please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Liz Stewart
Public Information Manager Manager
Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust
01245 514536

Care, Excel, Innovate

Apply to be a member of our Foundation Trust. See the web site at www.meht.nhs.uk for further details.

Information in this message may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our apologies; please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this e-mail or take any action in reliance on its contents: to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Please inform us that this message has gone astray before deleting it.

Content of emails received by this Trust will be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Unless the information is legally exempt from disclosure, confidentiality of this e-mail and your reply cannot be guaranteed. Thank you for your co-operation.