Department of Health and Social Care

The complainant originally made a request for information which in broad terms, related to guidance on dealing with patients who had suffered domestic abuse. Following the refusal of that request under section 12, the complainant submitted a refined request. The Department of Health and Social Security (DH&SC) responded to that request. Although the complainant was satisfied with the information that he was provided with, he complained about the time it had taken the DH&SC to provide that response. The Commissioner’s decision is that the DH&SC failed to respond to the request within the twenty working days. It has therefore breached section 10 of the FOIA. As the information was ultimately provided to the complainant, the Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any further action in this matter.