University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) receives a high number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. They are requests for information from members of the public which vary in complexity and topic.
The Trust has been experiencing challenges in responding to all FOI requests on time.
On 23 March 2026, the national Information Commissioner issued an Enforcement Notice to UHB. A requirement of the Enforcement Notice was for UHB to devise and publish an improvement plan to respond to unanswered FOI requests and improve compliance with the response time frames set out in the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Details of our remediation/action plan
FOI response rate
| By 23rd September 2026 | Respond to all ‘breached’ requests. Those that have not yet been responded to but have exceeded the statutory timeframe, seeking advice from the requestor to ensure their request is still valid. |
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| By 23rd September 2026 | Improve the percentage of information requests responded to within the statutory timeframe to over 70% by 23 September 2026, followed by further work thereafter to increase the compliance rate to more than 90%. |
Handling requests
| By 23rd September 2026 | Implement an automated FOI management system to support request handling and reporting which includes automated regular reminders about upcoming FOI response timeframe breaches, and makes clear where responses are required from multiple departments. |
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| By 31st July 2026 | Publish quarterly statistics on the percentage of information requests responded to within the statutory timeframe. |
Training and awareness
| By 23rd September 2026 | Ensure all FOI leads are appropriately trained by the Information Governance Team, and that a process flow diagram is made available to them. |
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Compliance and assurance
| By 23rd September 2026 | Develop a dashboard and/or regular reports for senior leadership showing which departments provide responses outside of the response timeframe. |
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| By 23rd September 2026 | Use FOI management system to provide a dashboard and/or regular reports to monitor request processing and completion. |
Governance structure
| Ongoing | Report monthly to the Trust Group Executive Team the compliance with the timeframes, this action plan and the compliance of each department for which they are responsible. |
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| Ongoing | Report compliance and any areas of risk to meeting the timeframe bi-monthly to the Data Strategy and Governance Group. |
As a Trust we are committed to improving our FOI response processes and ensuring timely and accurate handling of all FOI requests moving forward.
We will regularly update this page with progress against our remediation/action plan.
Last reviewed: 01 July 2026