The Freedom of Information Act

I suspect that many GP Practices are not fully aware of the potential impact that FoIA could have on them and so this blog sets out to describe that as well as explain how FoIA is linked to GDPR and potentially other legislation.

When FoIA came into force in 2000 it was only intended to be applied to Public Authorities. Therefore, part of the act itself defines what the law will consider as a public authority. In the Act at Schedule 1, Part 3, Para 43 to 45 it includes GP Practices within the scope of the FoIA. This has turned out to be an important aspect of the FoIA in itself as subsequent legislation, such as the Data Protection Act 2018 have, rather then attempt to define Public Authorities again, just referenced the definition in the FoIA.

The FoIA is intended to permit scrutiny of Public Authorities by encouraging them to publish much of the information they hold in a Publication Scheme, and then permitting anyone to ask for information not available in the scheme. Much of the focus of information requests tends to relate to decision making and how funds are spent, both legitimate concerns where public money is being spent. The FoIA also contains significant exemptions the most important for practices being around personal data, excessive cost and vexations requests.

This blog will not go into details of the FoIA, it is intended just to ensure that all practices are aware of it and given that it is quite rare for practices to receive requests I’d suggest if you do get one follow the guidance on the ICO web site or this excellent guide on the MDU web site.

A very good example of how to produce a web based publication scheme for a GP Practice is available here from a practice in Ealing.

Finally to note that practices can and do receive requests I found a case here from July this year where the individual requesting some information had taken a complaint to the ICO relating to a request made to a practice under FoIA. You can see that the practice had classed it as vexatious, a decision that the ICO agreed with. In this case the complaint related to contracts and was again upheld, whilst here the request was clearly complicated and related to treatment.

To summarise GP Practices should be aware of the FoIA and how it could be used to request information from them. Most importantly recognise a request sent in to the practice and deal with it following the guidance above. And of course as always please do not hesitate to contact the N3i IG Team for assistance and advice if you are unsure of any aspect.