Patient infections at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital: FOI Review

Information requested

1. All communication between NHS GGC and Scottish Government on patient infections at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus between 2015 and 2019.
2. All communication between NHS GGC and Scottish Government relating to the risk of infection at the QEUH campus between 2015 and 2019.
3. All reports shared between NHS GGC and Scottish Government in respect of the water system and ventilation system at the QEUH campus, between 2015 and 2019.

Response

Further to my letter of 13 September 2023, I have now completed a review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). 

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications. I have reached this conclusion because I am confident that the original procedure discovered all the relevant information held by the Scottish Government and was released to you, with appropriate redactions. However, the original decision should be modified to include additional information held by the Scottish Government that is within the scope of your original request.

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the reason why some information was redacted in the original response to your request. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in that instance we were unable to provide some of the information because an exemption under section 38(1) (b) (personal information) of FOISA applied to a small amount of the information requested. This applied because it was personal data of a third party, i.e. the names and contact details of non-senior staff, and disclosing it would have contravened the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption was not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we were not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighed the public interest in applying the exemption.

Additional Information
I have enclosed the further information we are releasing to you as part of this review process, without redactions. However, some of the information is also available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-01008/. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy. Please note that some information relating to FOI/19/01008 was withheld under section 25(1) and section 38(1)(b) of FOISA at the time of release.

I recognise that this does not represent a significant increase in the amount of information we have disclosed. However, I am content that the interrogation of our internal information repositories has been conducted with sufficient rigour and the information we have provided represents the information that we hold, in line with the scope of your request.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Information for Release

File type

3 page PDF

File size

100.7 kB