Information Commissioner's Office

Park End Surgery

25 July 2017, Health (Doctors)

The complainant has requested information relating to leave taken by a particular GP. The Commissioner’s decision is that Park End Surgery (the surgery) has correctly applied section 14(2) (repeated request) of the FOIA to the request. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps as a result of this decision notice. The Commissioner notes that a medical practice itself is not for the purposes of FOIA a public authority. Rather, each GP who provides primary medical services is a public authority themselves and has a duty to reply to a request in accordance with section 1 of FOIA. However, the Commissioner acknowledges that when an applicant makes a freedom of information request to a medical practice it is reasonable to expect that the practice will act as the single point of contact and process the request on the doctors’ behalf. For the purposes of this decision notice all references to the medical practice should be regarded as referring to the public authority.

FOI 14: Not upheld