The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) aims to promote a culture of openness and accountability amongst public authorities by providing people with rights of access to the information held by them.  It is expected that these rights will facilitate better public understanding of how public authorities carry out their duties, why they make the decisions they do and how they spend public money.

From January 1^st 2005 the FOI Act will oblige the General Practice to respond to requests about information that  it holds, recorded in any format and it will create a right of access to that information.

However, many practices are not yet aware of their obligations under the FOI Act 2000 to produce an approved publication scheme by 31^st October 2003 .

A publication scheme is a list or index of the type of information that will be available to the public, a description of how it can be obtained, an explanation of any charges that might apply (these are regulated by the Act) and of the types of information that the GP holds but cannot make available and why.

There can be no argument about the fact that a practice’s NHS funding represents public money, as does the expenditure on dugs prescribed by the clinicians in the practice.  Only if a practice can make a cogent case that its commercial interests would be harmed by disclosing details of the public money it is respoinsible for spending would it be justified in not disclosing that information.

To comply with the FOI Act, a publication must specify the classes (or types) of information that will be published, the manner in which the information is to be published and whether the material is intended to be made available free of charge or for a fee.

In the introduction you will need to include the names of the General Practitioners and the General Practice.  You will need to say how the information is to be made available (within each Class), whether it is to be downloadable from the practice website (if the practice has a website) or whether it is to be available as a “hard copy” or leaflet form and where or who this is available from (and this needs to be within each Class).  You will need to give the name of the person at the practice to whom questions, comments or complaints may be sent, including how requests for information from the publication scheme have been dealt with.

The Model publication scheme is broken down into the following classes:

Class 1 - Who We Are; details of the practice, organisational structure, key personnel and how we fit into the NHS. 

Class 2 – Our Services; the range of services provided under contract to the NHS. 

Class 3 – Financial and Funding Information; funding details and charging policies. 

Class 4 – Regular Publications and Information for the Public; Guidance and information leaflets. 

Class 5 – Complaints; policies, procedures and contacts for complaints. 

Class 6 – Our Policies and Procedures; general policies and procedures in use within the practice.  These include, but are not restricted to, data protection, prescribing and prescription, zero tolerance health and safety.

Class 7 – This Publication Scheme; In this class we will publish any changes we make to this Publication Scheme, the criteria on which our information management policies are made and a referral point for all enquiries regarding information management generally in General Practice.  We will also publish any proposed changes or additions to publications already available.

Further information and an online publication scheme are available through the Information Commissioner’s website – www.foi.nhs.uk/impl_indep_home.html