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19 July 2010

Summary of Request

The Authority was asked for longitudinal data on the staffing profile of fertility centres which have provided IVF for the period 1999-2006. The following data was requested for each centre:

1. Number of accredited consultants
2. Number of medical staff
3.  Number of embryologists (total; senior, qualified, trainees)
4. Number of ICSI practitioners (total; senior, qualified, trainees)
5. Nursing staff (total; qualified, trainees)

We make this request under the Freedom of Information Act and we intend to use the data for a study on the strategic management of these centres. The numerical codes assigned by HFEA to the centres in our study are:
 
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 44, 49, 52, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 86, 88, 94, 100, 101, 102, 105, 109, 115, 119, 133, 139, 143, 144, 153, 157, 158, 161, 170, 179, 180, 181, 184, 185, 186, 188.

HFEA Response

Your request received on 22 June 2010 has been dealt with in line with the Authority’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘FOIA’).

You have requested data on the staffing profile for 64 centres offering IVF between 1999 and 2006, either as an extract from inspection reports or from HFEA’s internal database.

Inspection reports written between 1999 and 2004 regularly contained names of staff involved in the delivery of IVF treatments at licensed centres, and the HFEA database also lists names of staff included on the licence. In order to service your request, all relevant inspection reports would have to be located either from our electronic record management system, our off site storage facility or our internal database. The sections relating to ‘staffing profile’ would have to be extracted, scrutinised and redacted to remove the names of clinic staff and then reformatted to provide you with the breakdown you need.

Staff names cannot be provided as the provision of personal details of clinic staff members, other than the names of the Person Responsible and the Licence Holder is withheld under sections 40(2) and 40(3)(a)(i) of the FOIA. The Authority is of the opinion that disclosure of such information would be in breach of the first data protection principle (fair and lawful processing) as set out in schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998 ('DPA'), and that none of the conditions set out in schedule 2 DPA are satisfied.

The time spent extracting the information you have requested and then reading, scanning, redacting and reformatting the data into a suitable format would exceed 25 hours. Section 12 FOIA allows public authorities to refuse to answer requests for information if the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 ('the Regulations'). The Regulations provide that public authorities are not obliged to disclose information under the Act where the combined costs of determining whether the information is held, locating the information, retrieving the information and extracting the information for the purpose of disclosure is estimated to exceed the sum of £450 to be calculated on the basis of a notional rate of £25 per hour. Effectively the Regulations provide, therefore, that the HFEA is under no obligation to disclose information under the FOIA where it estimates that the process of determining whether the information is held, locating, retrieving and extracting the information will take longer than 18 hours. The estimated cost to fully comply with your request would be in the region of £1,000 and for this reason your request is refused.

It may be possible to provide you with some information within the time and cost limitations, for example if you narrowed the scope of your request to a single year ie May 2003 – May 2004.

Please note that the 20-day time period for responding to your request has been suspended and should you choose to refine your request the clock will begin again once I have received the necessary clarification.

Page last updated: 09 August 2012

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