The National Health Service (Personal Dental Services Agreements) Regulations 2005

Requests for information from Patients' Forums

37.—(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2), where the contractor (other than a Primary Care Trust) receives a written request from the Patients' Forum established for the area of the Primary Care Trust to produce any information which appears to the Forum to be necessary for the effective carrying out of its functions, it shall comply with that request promptly and in any event no later than the twentieth working day following the date the request was made.

(2) The contractor shall not be required to produce information under sub-paragraph (1) which—

(a) is confidential and relates to a living individual, unless at least one of the conditions specified in sub-paragraph (3) applies; or

(b) is prohibited from disclosure by or under any enactment or any ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction or is protected by the common law, unless sub-paragraph (4) applies.

(3) The conditions referred to in sub-paragraph (2)(a) are—

(a) the information can be disclosed in a form from which the identity of the individual cannot be ascertained; or

(b) the individual consents to the information being disclosed.

(4) This sub-paragraph applies where—

(a) the prohibition of the disclosure of information arises because the information is capable of identifying an individual; and

(b) the information can be disclosed in a form from which the identity of the individual cannot be ascertained.

(5) In a case where the information falls within—

(a) sub-paragraph (2)(a) and the condition in sub-paragraph (3)(a) applies; or

(b) sub-paragraph (2)(b) and sub-paragraph (4) applies,

a Patients' Forum may require the contractor to disclose the information in a form from which the identity of the individual concerned cannot be ascertained.