Information on various health related matters: FOI release

Information requested

1. Could you supply all correspondence held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis and minutes/notes from meetings, about the NHS Scotland infrastructure plan, from the last three months?

2. In June 2024, Neil Gray asked for NHS Chairs and boards to "refocus their attention on delayed discharge, with the aim of returning them to pre-pandemic levels by winter." - https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-chairs-minutes-june-2024/ -Could you detail whether this happened, what work went in to meet this aim and comparisons of whether delayed discharge was returned to pre-pandemic levels by the winter?

3. Could you supply all correspondence held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis and minutes/notes from meetings, about a Belford Hospital replacement, from the last three months?

4. Could you supply all correspondence held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis and minutes/notes from meetings, about cancer research funding, from the last three months?

Response

In relation to sub-questions 1), 3), and 4) of your request, a search of our database was carried out for the 3 month period requested. However, we are unable to provide any of this information as it is deemed "out of scope"; while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, the costs of locating, retrieving and providing this information exceeds the upper cost limit of £600 stipulated in Section 12 of FOISA regulations -

"Under Section 12 of FOI(S)A we may refuse a request when it exceeds the cost limit which is currently set at £600 or 40 hours work at band B1 level (£15 per hour)."

The reason for this is that in order to locate and retrieve the information in question, we would need to conduct a search of all records held by the Scottish Government. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities, we are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12. The volume of results returned by these searches means the request will exceed the threshold of being "in scope" (e.g. redacting all personal information and/or any discussion relating to the formulation of policy).

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could narrow the request to include email exchanges between specific members of Scottish Government and/or relating to a specific topic within a smaller time frame. This would allow us to limit the searches that would be required and to present the emails in a way that complies with FOISA guidance and does not exceed the upper cost threshold mentioned in Section 12. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

For Point 1) of your request -

NHS Boards develop local plans and there is currently no single overarching NHS infrastructure plan for Scotland. However, work is in progress to develop an NHS whole system infrastructure plan (WSIP) for Scotland, which will be informed by NHS Boards’ strategic assessments of need.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

You may find the Director’s Letter recently released on the development process of interest. This is publicly available here: https://www.publications.scot.nhs.uk/files/dl-2025-15.pdf

As noted in that letter, the 2025-26 Scottish Budget and 2025 Programme for Government set out the priority NHS projects for which business cases are currently being developed: University Hospital Monklands, Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, the Belford Hospital and the Barra and Vatersay Community Campus. The NHS WSIP, once developed, will set out priority projects to be taken forward once those projects already in development are complete.

After a search of the relevant email inboxes, I have compiled all responses that are relevant to and in scope with your request. Please find enclosed a copy of this in the form of a PDF document, titled "1_NHS Scotland Infrastructure Emails_Redacted". Any attachments referenced in the email chains have also been uploaded as separate emails, redacted in line with FOISA guidance. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies. Disclosing this information would contravene 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. FOISA exemption Section 30(b)(i) was also applied in one instance as the information was classed as official and disclosing this would impinge Scottish Government's ability to carry out the free and frank provision of advice in a safe space.

For Point 2) of your request -

Could you detail whether this happened:

This would be a question most appropriately answered by the NHS Chairs/Board and not Scottish Government. It is therefore classed as "not held" as we are unable to provide a response.

what work went in to meet this aim:

Weekly meetings of the Collaborative Response and Assurance Group (CRAG) were carried out to consider the management information about performance in terms of delays. Targeted offers of support were provided to some HSCPs via SG officials, professional advisors, HIS, peer group and others.

whether delayed discharge was returned to pre-pandemic levels by the winter?

No. Delayed discharges prior to the pandemic in November 2019 stood at 1,491. The delayed discharge figure for November 2024 was 2,020. Published monthly statistics on delayed discharges can be found at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotlandmonthly

For Point 3)

In addition to the database searches which were carried out that were deemed out of scope, searches of the relevant email inboxes were carried out but yielded a nil result.

For Point 4)

In addition to the searches that were carried out which are out of scope, I have compiled all responses after a search of the relevant email inboxes that are in scope with your request. Please find enclosed a copy of this in the form of 2 PDF documents; "4_Cancer Research Funding Emails" and "4_CSO Unit_Cancer Research Funding Emails" . Any attachments referenced in the email chains have also been uploaded as separate emails, redacted in line with FOISA guidance. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies. Disclosing this information would contravene 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. FOISA exemption Section 30(b)(i) was also applied in one instance as the information was classed as official and disclosing this would impinge Scottish Government's ability to carry out the free and frank provision of advice in a safe space.

About FOI

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

FOI 202500474897 - Information released - Annex

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