Request
Sent: 27 January 2009
17:03
Subject: winter pressures
Please provide me
under the Freedom of Information Act with copies of correspondence
to the Department of Health in November and December 2008 and
January 2009 updating the DH on winter pressures and the
performance of hospitals and PCTs in your health system.
In particular
please provide details of any hospitals breaching 4 hour A&E
targets, and with 12 hour trolley waits. Please also supply any
analysis of the reasons for particular pressures on parts of the
system.
*********************************************************
Our Response
Freedom
of Information
Thank you for
your email of 28 January requesting information from NHS East
Midlands around winter pressure.
I can confirm in
accordance with S.1 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 that
we do hold some of the information that you have
requested.
I will address
each of your queries in turn:-
‘Please
provide me under the Freedom of Information Act with copies of
correspondence to the Department of Health in November and December
2008 and January 2009 updating the DH on winter pressures and the
performance of hospitals and PCTs in your health
system.
- NHS East Midlands has experienced similar
winter pressures to other parts of the country during December 2008
and January 2009. As I am sure you will appreciate, at this time of
year, more people suffer from winter illnesses including breathing
and heart-related problems which the NHS is used to dealing with
and staff and emergency services have responded accordingly over
this very busy period and are continuing to cope. In response
to the levels of demand placed on Acute Trusts and PCT services,
the local NHS services have continued to brief the public
proactively over the winter period to ensure that the public have
been able to access the right treatment or service(s) for them
before resorting to calling the emergency services or taking a trip
to accident and emergency.
- As requested I have attached copies of
the correspondence between NHS East Midlands and the Department of
Health (DH) over the period November 2008 to January 2009 which
gave an update to the DH on winter pressures and the performance of
hospitals. Please see the attached pdf file.
- You will also note that I have redacted
the names of some of the more junior members of staff under section
40 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is an absolute
exemption relating to Personal Information. I would point out
that the redaction of these names does not have any bearing on the
information contained within the documents. The purpose
of section 40 of the Act is to protect personally identifiable
information and the privacy of living persons.
In particular
please provide details of any hospitals breaching 4 hour A&E
targets, and with 12 hour trolley waits. Please also supply any
analysis of the reasons for particular pressures on parts of the
system.’
- I can also confirm that there have been
no 12 hour trolley waits during the period within the East
Midlands.
I hope that this
information is of use to you. Please note that if you are
dissatisfied with the way in which we have dealt with your request
you can complain in writing to:-
Mr Kevin
Orford
Deputy Chief
Executive and Director of Finance
NHS East
Midlands
Octavia
House
Interchange
Business Park
Bostock's
Lane
Sandiacre
Nottingham
NG10
5QG
If at the
conclusion of any review you remain dissatisfied you may complain
to the Information Commissioner who can be contacted
at:-
The Office of the
Information Commissioner
Wycliffe
House
Water
Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9
5AF
