Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will consider introducing a more centralised process for Freedom of Information requests concerning surgeons across England.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request is a request for recorded information held by that public authority. The Department is only able to respond to requests for information that it holds at the time of the request, and interaction with other public authorities on FOIs is therefore limited. All requests must be handled in line with the principles of the FOI Act and the guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office, as the FOI regulator. There is therefore no ability at present for the Department to operate a separate process for any specific topics or areas of interest.