The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) requires every public authority to have a publication scheme, approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), and to publish information covered by the scheme. This is in addition to responding to requests for information.
In July 2024, the ICO published a blog stating that they are focusing on public authorities’ compliance with the duty to proactively publish information in accordance with the ICO’s model publication scheme. Londonwide LMCs has also been informed that some GP practices have been contacted by the ICO for being non-compliant as they did not have a publication scheme in place.
The ICO states that general practitioners providing primary medical services under most contracts with the NHS in England are public authorities in respect of information relating to those services and their publication scheme is for information related to those services.
The model publication scheme commits a public authority to publish certain classes of information. The ICO have produced a model publication scheme for bodies only covered for certain information, including GP practices.
The ICO have produced a template guide for GPs which gives examples of the kinds of information that the ICO expects GPs to publish to meet their requirements under FOIA. Pages 4-10 of the template guide identify the specific information that the ICO expects GPs to publish under each of the seven classes of information set out in the model publication scheme.
The ICO requires practices to adopt the model publication scheme in full and unedited and promote it alongside the guide to information if they have not yet already done so. A GP practice is in breach of FOIA if they have not adopted the model publication scheme or are not publishing in accordance with it. There is no requirement to notify the ICO that a practice has adopted the scheme.
The ICO have a 90 seconds guide for public authority staff on Freedom of information that may be useful initial information.