Request ID: FOI-0726-2122 Date published: 03 August 2021
You asked
1. Can you provide me with the Attendance at Work policy where the statutory right pursuant to Health and Safety at work at Section 44 of the ERA 1996 is embedded and it’s iterations since 2014?
For the avoidance of doubt, the details of this legislation are listed in the link below:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/18/section/44
If no such policy exists, can you state that no such policy exists.
In addition, can you provide me with all specific TFL policies where the statutory rights pursuant to Health and Safety are embedded?
If no such policy exists, can you state that no such policy exists.
2. Can you provide with the TFL policies pertaining to Equality Impact Assessments and Disability Impact Assessments and its iterations since 2014?
Occupational Health
1. Are you able to provide me with the all the policies and handbooks pertaining to Occupational Health and it’s iterations since 2014?
2. Can you provide me with the specific TFL OH policies related to patient/employee consent and confidentiality? If there are no such policies, please respond there are no such policies.
3. Can you provide me with the specific TFL policies where management are authorised and able to waive patient/employee confidentiality and access a diagnosis/advice pertaining to an employee without patient consent?
If there are no such policies, please respond there are no such policies
Can you also provide me what happens when a TFL employee is found to be in breach of these policies, what this behaviour is classified as (ie misconduct, gross misconduct) and what sanction or formal process/procedure is subsequently applied to that TFL employee?
4. Can you provide me with the specific TFL policies where Occupational Health are authorised, legally or otherwise, and able to override the diagnosis and treatment outlined by another medical professional directly involved with that patient without any consultation with said medical professional or the patient/employee?
If there are no such policy, please respond there are no such policy.
Can you also provide me what happens when a TFL/OH employee is found to be in breach of these policies, what this behaviour is classified as (ie misconduct, gross misconduct) and what sanction or formal process/procedure is subsequently applied to that TFL/OH employee?
5. Can you provide me with the specific TFL policies where management are authorised to access or be provided medical information about an patient/employee by Occupational Health without the patients/employees consent or confirmation of the patients/employees consent?
If there are no such policies, please respond there are no such policies
Can you also provide me what happens when a TFL/OH employee is found to be in breach of these policies, what this behaviour is classified as (ie misconduct, gross misconduct) and what sanction or formal process/procedure is subsequently applied to that TFL/OH employee?
6. Can you provide me with the specific TFL policies when any OH or medical report is requested by management without the patient/employee’s consent and without the said patient/employee having any visibility of that report?
If there are no such policies, please respond there are no such policies
Can you also provide me what happens when a TFL/OH employee is found to be in breach of these policies, what this behaviour is classified as (ie misconduct, gross misconduct) and what sanction or formal process/procedure is subsequently applied to that TFL/OH employee?
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0726-2122
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 7 July 2021, asking for policy documents.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require. Unfortunately, to provide all of the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.
We have estimated that it would considerably exceed the cost limit to provide all of the current as well as past versions of the required policies. We create a new version of a policy every time there’s a change or an update. As a result we have a large number of different versions of policies, procedures and guidance and it would be a very burdensome task for someone to manually identify, locate and retrieve all of them dating back to 2014. Furthermore, some of the policies would be held in our archived records.Locating and collating the relevant policies from archived material would require us to recall several boxes from storage and manually review the paperwork for anything that may provide the information you require which would of course increase the processing time required to complete your request.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. You should specify the types of documents that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a shorter period of time.
However, please find attached our current Attendance at Work policies and our current Equality Impact Assessment policy which we were able to easily access. I hope you find them helpful.
With regard to policies “when any Occupation Health or medical report is requested by management without the patient/employee’s consent”, please note there are no such policies. Employee consent must be obtained to share information with management. And this also applies to your request for “policies where management are authorised and able to waive patient/employee confidentiality and access a diagnosis/advice pertaining to an employee without patient consent.”Medical information cannot be shared without consent.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Eva Hextall FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
