Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on how many occasions his Department applied the exemption in section 38(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (disclosure likely to endanger the physical or mental health of any individual) in wholly or partly refusing a freedom of information request in each of the last five years.

The Department has applied exemption s.38 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 three times in the past five years as set out below.

2011 – both s.38(1)(a) and s.38(1)(b) were applied to one case.

2012 – s.38(1)(b) was applied to one case.

2013 – s.38(1)(a) was applied to one case.