Information Commissioner's Office

Royal Surrey County Hospital

5 February 2007, Health (NHS)

The complainant made three requests to the public authority for copies of two x-rays taken during the course of the medical care given to her late husband. The complainant alleged that the public authority failed to respond to the first of these requests within 20 working days. The complainant also complained that the information provided in response to these requests was inadequate because of the poor quality of the first x-ray and the fact that the second x-ray did not fulfil her request. Having investigated the matter, the Commissioner has decided that the information provided did fulfil the complainant’s requests although the public authority did not respond to the first request within 20 working days. The Commissioner has also decided that the information was exempt under section 21 of the Act because it was accessible to the applicant under the Access to Health Records Act. The Commissioner has established that the public authority failed to provide the complainant with a refusal notice citing section 21.

FOI 1: Not upheld