Our Hospital Clinical User Group (FOI)

Request

When the team responsible for delivering our new hospital are interviewed by scrutiny, they often refer to the 'Clinical User Group' as a body of people they liaise with on the build.

Could you please advise;

A

The names and positions of who is in this group?

B

The dates on which they have met?

C

The name and position of the Chair of the meetings?

D

Copies of minutes of all meetings?

Response

A

There are a number different Clinical User Groups which are informal discussion groups that are not part of the formal governance arrangements for the Our Hospital Project. These discussion groups have an open invitation to each department for any of their clinical staff to attend. It is the choice of individual clinicians if they wish to attend and to provide input. These discussions provide a forum for open and frank discussion, where staff have an expectation of a level of anonymity. Therefore, article 25 (personal information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to maintain that anonymity.

B

A table of all dates of meetings is included in the attachment below:

Clinical User Group meeting dates

C

As stated in the answer to question A, these are not formal meetings nor do they form part of the formal Governance structure, therefore, there is no ‘chair’. However, the Clinical Director and the Design and Delivery Partner facilitates the discussions.

D

As these are iterative discussion forums, they are not recorded via formal minutes. Therefore Article 3, meaning of ‘information held by public authority’ of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. However, the outputs are taken by the Design and Delivery Partner to inform the evolving design.

Article applied

Article 3 Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.[3]

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.[4]