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Data Protection Act Subject Access Request - Excessive Photocopy charges?
damienuk
Posts: 31 Forumite
Hi,
Not sure if this is the most appropriate board for it, so apologies in advance (kinda seems like a "consumer rights" issue to me).
My partner recently requested a copy of her medical records from her GP, and was charged a delightful £50 for it. This is the max. the DPA allows (up to £10 for computer based records, £50 for manual), so although its steep, it's also not surprising in itself.
They charged 35p/sheet for photocopying: considering the commercial rate (i.e. high-street charge for an individual) is more like 5p-10p/sheet I fail to see how they can claim 35p as a legitimate rate?
As far as I'm aware, the charges should not generate a profit and should therefore be reflective of the costs incurred in processing the request. I read something on the DoH website regarding this but can't find it now, although I did find these guidance notes which state (on page 8):
Can anyone confirm the actual rules regarding this issue? Is that "financial gain" issue just guidance, or is there a regulation to that effect (I assume would be part of the "Fees and Miscellaneous Provisions" referred to)?
I found the Statutory Instrument in question(?) relating to fees for DPA subject access requests. There was also an amendment to this regarding the date limitation on the £50 fee, but otherwise still relevant in terms of overall regulations on the matter.
Also note that the table within Regulation 5(3) (related to educational records) stipulates a max. fee of 10p/sheet? (for reference, these were all plain paper photocopied sheets, nothing complicated like x-rays for example).
As an aside, I'm also slightly curious as they charged £10 to "access the records" (note that the request was purely for copies of the records, not access + copy), and then an additional £10 for staff time (i.e. the access part apparently wasn't a charge for the admin work): would the GP need to pay some fee to the PCT or something like that?
Note: All of this is primarily for informational purposes. As she paid the £50 without asking questions (it was actually something like £58, reduced to £50 as the max. fee) there's obviously little comeback, or point to it, at this stage. However, I'd also like copies of my own records for personal interest, but I disagree with the 35p/sheet charge as legitimate.
PS Since this is regarding our wonderful publically funded NHS, let me also point out that I'm not begrudging them money per se. - I'd actually be in favour of a token charge per GP appointment and likewise am in favour of prescription charges (both having exceptions for high frequency service users - PPC - and low-income/benefits recipients etc.). My point being that this isn't about me wanting the NHS to foot the bill for everything and anything out of the 'public purse'
PPS Apologies for the super-long post!
PPPS Also apologies for the links; had to put a space after www. and remove the url bbcode because apparently I'm still considered a "new user" after 8 months. I made a few extra posts around the place but I couldn't waste the entire day on the forum
Not sure if this is the most appropriate board for it, so apologies in advance (kinda seems like a "consumer rights" issue to me).
My partner recently requested a copy of her medical records from her GP, and was charged a delightful £50 for it. This is the max. the DPA allows (up to £10 for computer based records, £50 for manual), so although its steep, it's also not surprising in itself.
They charged 35p/sheet for photocopying: considering the commercial rate (i.e. high-street charge for an individual) is more like 5p-10p/sheet I fail to see how they can claim 35p as a legitimate rate?
As far as I'm aware, the charges should not generate a profit and should therefore be reflective of the costs incurred in processing the request. I read something on the DoH website regarding this but can't find it now, although I did find these guidance notes which state (on page 8):
Remember these are the maximum costs and any charges for access requests should not be seen to make a financial gain.
Can anyone confirm the actual rules regarding this issue? Is that "financial gain" issue just guidance, or is there a regulation to that effect (I assume would be part of the "Fees and Miscellaneous Provisions" referred to)?
I found the Statutory Instrument in question(?) relating to fees for DPA subject access requests. There was also an amendment to this regarding the date limitation on the £50 fee, but otherwise still relevant in terms of overall regulations on the matter.
Also note that the table within Regulation 5(3) (related to educational records) stipulates a max. fee of 10p/sheet? (for reference, these were all plain paper photocopied sheets, nothing complicated like x-rays for example).
As an aside, I'm also slightly curious as they charged £10 to "access the records" (note that the request was purely for copies of the records, not access + copy), and then an additional £10 for staff time (i.e. the access part apparently wasn't a charge for the admin work): would the GP need to pay some fee to the PCT or something like that?
Note: All of this is primarily for informational purposes. As she paid the £50 without asking questions (it was actually something like £58, reduced to £50 as the max. fee) there's obviously little comeback, or point to it, at this stage. However, I'd also like copies of my own records for personal interest, but I disagree with the 35p/sheet charge as legitimate.
PS Since this is regarding our wonderful publically funded NHS, let me also point out that I'm not begrudging them money per se. - I'd actually be in favour of a token charge per GP appointment and likewise am in favour of prescription charges (both having exceptions for high frequency service users - PPC - and low-income/benefits recipients etc.). My point being that this isn't about me wanting the NHS to foot the bill for everything and anything out of the 'public purse'
PPS Apologies for the super-long post!
PPPS Also apologies for the links; had to put a space after www. and remove the url bbcode because apparently I'm still considered a "new user" after 8 months. I made a few extra posts around the place but I couldn't waste the entire day on the forum
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Comments
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35p does not seem excessive to me. By my calculations, that was about 165 pages to copy.... Would take a heck of a long time to do.0
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35p does not seem excessive to me. By my calculations, that was about 165 pages to copy.... Would take a heck of a long time to do.
35p per sheet is cost price??
Remember that they charged for the admin time as well, so I don't buy including that (again) within the per sheet photocopy charges.
Plus, a stack of paper in a document feeder on a photocopier is a quick and unattended job.
I estimate that material costs (including electric) are around 2p/sheet, so even if you want to add some for photocopier itself, 33p is surely excessive for that?
For example, compare with this: www. tyndalehouse.com//photocopy.htm They charge 15p sheet including copying, postage, and administration. Not identical, but this is regarding FOI photocopy charges.
As I said, not asking for it to cost them to handle the request, as clearly that would be wrong - but why should they make a profit from it? If there is a legitimate reason for them to charge £30 for staff time then that's no problem, but they charged £10 for the admin (in itself, about an hour or so worth, so seems reasonable?), and 35p/sheet for the photocopying (there were just over 100 sheets, don't forget they charged an extra £10 for accessing the records: whatever that literally meant).
My concern is that I don't want to request my own records and be charged £50 as well (though I expect far less sheets for me :rolleyes:): hence I want to clarify if they are legally allowed to charge such excessive fees.
E.g. I imagine my request to be charged something like:
£10 random access fee for unknown purpose
£10 admin
35p/sheet ... let's guess at 50 sheets
= £37.50
That's steep considering that if they charged a more realistic 10p/sheet it'd be £25. So my question is whether or not they're entitled to the other £12.50 0 -
You are arguing over £12.50????
It would have taken someone a considerable period of time to do the copying. £50 for a heck of a lot of photocopying is not excessive.
How could they copy the records if they did not access them in the first place????0 -
Maybe I'm not explaining it very well, or perhaps I'm completely unreasonable. However, let me state it again in case it was overlooked:
I'm not begruding paying for any legitimate cost involved in handling the request, and actually the £50 limit is a red-herring in that respect which I don't necessarily agree with. My issue is with them making a profit from it, and if they're purporting that it's costing them 35p/sheet to perform photocopying (PLUS the admin time for it) then I fail to see how they're not profiting from it?
BTW £12.50 is an example, but what if they collect an extra £12.50 from every patient they have? How is this fundamentally different to other (potentially) rip-off NHS related charges such as parking (which may be £5 instead of £2 for example)?0 -
You don't seem to appreciate that the actual cost is the cost of copying (paper, lease charges on copier or amortisation of costs if bought, electricity, toner, etc) PLUS the labour cost of dealign with the application.0
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Also regarding this suggestion, can I ask that if £12.50 is "nothing" you drop £12.50 in the post to me as I'll be happy to receive it from you...You are arguing over £12.50????
For what it's worth Spar et. al. charge 5p/sheet and don't offer that service for the fun of it; one presumes that they make a profit at that, so I don't think that my suggestion the GP is inflating their "costs" by 25p/sheet is unreasonable.
If for some reason it takes more than an hour to photocopy 100 sheets (really?) then by all means charge £15, £20, or whatever is reasonable for the staff time.
However, my question in this thread isn't if £50 is reasonable for 108 sheets of medical records (inc. associated admin) - for the record, I believe that it probably is.
My question is if 35p/sheet is a true reflection of the cost of the photocopying (exclusive of admin), and if it's inflated (as my research and common-sense suggests to be the case) then is there anything (supposedly) preventing them from (potentially) making a profit via this?
E.g. Hypothetically, if I make an access request and there was only 10 sheets to photocopy: could they legitimately (legally) charge me £50 for that (the max. fee for handling such a request)? Even if it took them 5 minutes to open the filing cabinet and press copy - hence cost them no more than £10?0 -
You don't seem to appreciate that the actual cost is the cost of copying (paper, lease charges on copier or amortisation of costs if bought, electricity, toner, etc) PLUS the labour cost of dealign with the application.
Paper = 0.5p/sheet. Toner ~ 1p/sheet: those are generous figures (I've read suggestions that could be ~ 1p/sheet all in, including lease/maintenance/purchase of copierm floor space rental costs, electric etc.). However, as I said, they're charging for admin separately so the "plus the labour cost" is nothing to do with the 35p.
They already had the photocopier and is therefore arguably slightly irrelevant - unless they happen to have it exclusively for handling such requests, but regardless TCO is definitely less than 5p/sheet if Spar etc. charge that as a commercial service and make a profit... Alternatively does your public library or council office subsidise public photocopying: general charge of such places is 10p/sheet from what I gather.
You can get full colour copying for less from any commercial printshop.0 -
Ok. I reviewed the entire thread and I think I've put the wrong questions forward or something...
Let me summarise:- I don't believe that £50 for the entire request is unreasonable.
- I have little doubt that 35p/sheet is high for literally what they state it's for, since commercial photocopying services are widely and readily available for members of the public at 5-10p/sheet. IF it included labour then maybe not, but they can't charge this twice (i.e. admin fee + built-in labour fee for photocopy).
- Irrespective of the above: in the event that charges don't reflect the true costs of handling the request (i.e. are inflated) is that legitimate in terms of the corresponding legislation?
Keep in mind here that subject access requests to credit reference agencies are a mere £2, and most other requests you're likely to ever make would be capped at £10. Therefore setting a max. of £50 on medical records is exceptional, but supposed to take into consideration:
a) high probability of significant volume of manual record keeping
b) expensive reproduction costs for some forms of test result such as xrays etc.
Where it seems that legislators dropped the ball (from what I gather) is that educational records (also high volume of manual record keeping) stipulate fees per A4 copy item, whilst as far as I can see there is no restriction on medical records: so in theory you could be charged £50 for a single A4 sheet? Is that correct?0 -
Subject access requests to credit reference agencies are a particular breed under the DPA. They are also set up for SARs. GPs are not.
You really don't seem to recognise that the costs of printing are more than toner and paper.0 -
You don't seem to recognise that I've already stated contrary to this, and also commercial photocopying services (i.e. which make a profit from the photocopying) charge 5-10p/sheet, therefore toner + paper + other costs such as purchase/maintenance of the copier MUST be less than this so that their is a profit at those prices!You really don't seem to recognise that the costs of printing are more than toner and paper.
As I tried to explain in my last post, I'm not really interested that interested in whether 35p/sheet is or is not excessive at this stage.
I just want to understand if there's anything preventing abuse of this legislation such as charging £50 purely because it's the max. possible charge: even if the full total, complete, and absolute costs incurred were 1p for instance...
Is there legislation protecting against this? Anyone know?0
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