Bolton Primary Care Trust

In order to comply with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 public sector organisations such as ours have to routinely publish information whenever possible.The rights of access to information is subject to some exemptions which the PCT has to take into account before deciding what information can be released. If you make a request and we are unable to release some or all of the information, we will explain this to you.

The Freedom of Information Act does not change your right to confidentiality, your personal information is still protected by the Data Protection Act 1998. Under this act you are entitled to access your clinical records or any other personal information held about you by NHS Bolton.

As an open and transparent organisation we are committed to routinely publishing as much information as possible and most of the information we make routinely available can be accessed via our  publication scheme or website by using the search facility.  If you cannot find information through the search engine this may be because the information cannot be loaded onto our website.

If you want information which is not on our website you may ask us for it in accordance with further provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  All requests must be in writing and must state the following:

• Requester's name
• Requester's address
• Details of the information which you require

Requests should be sent to the document control manager at the address below:

foi@bolton.nhs.uk

We are required under the Act  to deal with requests within 20 working days. If you make a request and are not satisfied with the way in which we deal with it you may ask us to review any decision we make. If you wish us to undertake such a review you should write to the Accountable Officer at the address below:

Any review will normally be under the control and direction of a senior member of staff who had no involvement in the original decision or process.

If you remain dissatisfied at the conclusion of any review you may complain to the Information Commissioner whose address is:

The Freedom of Information Act and the associated Fees Regulations stipulate that we cannot levy a fee for information unless there is a statutory basis for doing so or the amount of time taken to locate, collate and process the information exceeds 18 hours.

However, we are allowed to charge for disbursements related to the provision of information and any reformatting requested by the applicant provided we ensure that applicants are aware of any charges which may be made.

No charges will be made for any information accessed via our website. For any information which is provided in hard copy and where there is no statutory provision for charges our rates for photocopying, reformatting and postage will be provided in advance on application.