2026/2015

This request concerns the service availability of the GP Foundation Solutions EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne and the reporting the ICB receives or holds in relation to it.

I would like to request the following information, covering the period 1 April 2023 to the date of this request:

1. Any periodic or ad hoc service review reports received by the ICB from EMIS or TPP, or from a GP IT Delivery Partner on their behalf, which report on service availability, uptime or downtime for practices.
2. Any record held by the ICB of a percentage availability figure achieved by EMIS Web or TPP SystmOne for practices in its area.
3. Any notification received from a GP practice that it was unable to provide contracted services partially or fully, including the date, duration, practice, and the cause recorded. Please indicate where a cause was recorded as clinical system or IT failure.
4. Any log, register or summary held by the ICB noting temporary practice closures, partial service suspensions, or business continuity incidents reported by practices.
5. Any log, register or summary of High Severity Incidents, including the number of incidents, and for each the date, duration and number of practices affected.
6. The number of network and information systems incidents relating to GP clinical systems reported by the ICB through the NHS Incident Reporting Tool, broken down by year.

Any correspondence between the ICB and EMIS or TPP, or between the ICB and NHS England, concerning Foundation Solution availability, downtime, or service performance.

1.    The ICB confirms that it holds information falling within the scope of your request. However, the information is exempt from disclosure under Section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Information Provided in Confidence). The information consists of service review reports, availability data and related performance information supplied by third-party system suppliers and/or service delivery partners. This information was obtained by the ICB in circumstances importing a duty of confidence and is not otherwise publicly available. The ICB considers that Section 41 applies, as disclosure of this business information, which is neither trivial nor already in the public domain, would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. The information contains commercially sensitive operational and service performance data provided with an expectation of confidentiality. Disclosure would undermine the confidential relationship between the parties and could result in legal action by the information provider.

2.    The ICB confirms that it holds information falling within the scope of your request. However, the information is exempt from disclosure under Section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Information Provided in Confidence). The information consists of service review reports, availability data and related performance information supplied by third-party system suppliers and/or service delivery partners. This information was obtained by the ICB in circumstances importing a duty of confidence and is not otherwise publicly available. The ICB considers that Section 41 applies, as disclosure of this business information, which is neither trivial nor already in the public domain, would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. The information contains commercially sensitive operational and service performance data provided with an expectation of confidentiality. Disclosure would undermine the confidential relationship between the parties and could result in legal action by the information provider.

• The ICB does not hold the requested information in a single report, register or system that would enable it to be retrieved within the cost limit prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. To identify, locate, retrieve and extract the information requested would require the ICB to undertake extensive searches across multiple systems, records, incident logs, emails, business continuity records and correspondence held by a number of teams. The information, where held, is not centrally recorded in a way that would allow the requested details to be readily extracted. In particular, compliance with the request would require the ICB to:

• Review notifications and correspondence received from individual GP practices over multiple years.
• Examine business continuity, incident management and operational records to identify relevant practice service disruption events.
• Manually review incident reports to determine causes, duration, practices affected and whether incidents related to clinical systems or IT failures.
• Identify and extract information relating to High Severity Incidents and NHS Incident Reporting Tool submissions from a range of records.
• The ICB estimates that the work required to determine whether all relevant information is held and to locate, retrieve and extract that information would exceed the appropriate limit of £450, equivalent to 18 hours of work at the statutory rate of £25 per hour, as set out in Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The ICB confirms that it holds information falling within the scope of your request. However, the information is exempt from disclosure under Section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Information Provided in Confidence). The information consists of service review reports, availability data and related performance information supplied by third-party system suppliers and/or service delivery partners. This information was obtained by the ICB in circumstances importing a duty of confidence and is not otherwise publicly available. The ICB considers that Section 41 applies, as disclosure of this business information, which is neither trivial nor already in the public domain, would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. The information contains commercially sensitive operational and service performance data provided with an expectation of confidentiality. Disclosure would undermine the confidential relationship between the parties and could result in legal action by the information provider.