FOI request (FOIR-153695002)

NowMedical

Requested Wed 30 October 2019
Responded  Wed 13 November 2019

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act. In order to assist you with this request, I am outlining my query as specifically as possible.

Please provide data for questions 1-3 broken down by year, for each year from 2011 to 2018 AND for 2019 up to 31/03/19 (ie, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 up to 31/03/19).

1. If possible: How many medical assessment cases for homelessness or housing applications has the council undertaken? (Broken down by year).

2. Of these assessments, how many has the company NowMedical advised on? (Broken down by year).

3. For each year, how much was paid to NowMedical?

(Please provide the answers to questions 1-3 in an Excel or CSV file).

4. When does the council's current contract with NowMedical run to?

If any of the information in not attainable please respond as soon as possible outlining alterations I might make. If time is a factor please start with question 1 and continue providing all the information possible in the time frame.

If my request is denied in whole or in part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the Act. I will also expect you to release all non-exempt material. I reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to charge excessive fees.

I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received this request. I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as outlined by the statute.

Response

Q1 - During this period, the council did not carry out any Occupational Therapy (OT) assessments. Customers arranged this themselves via East Sussex County Council or the NHS. Customers do provide us with copies of their OT assessments as evidence for their homelessness cases or housing applications. We review all medical information provided by the customer and either award medical banding for their housing register application (as per our Hastings Homemove Allocation Scheme 2018) and/or used to establish if they have priority need when making homeless decisions.

Q2 - NOTICE OF REFUSAL

The information requested in respect of Q2 would require us to manually check approximately 1000 cases per year, approximately 9000 in total which would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner therefore under S12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 provides an exemption from the obligation to comply with a request for information if the estimated costs of complying with that request would exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.

We estimate that the costs of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit by a significant amount.

For this reason we feel unable to comply with this request.

Q3 - Zero, we have not paid any money to NowMedical.

Q4 - N/A, we do not have a contract with NowMedical.