SAERS Reports - FOI Response Register

1. In total, how many Significant Adverse Event Review (SAERs) were commissioned by your health board in each of the last four full financial years which relate to stillbirth, neonatal , extended perinatal, post-neonatal and infant deaths. Please then breakdown these figures, again for each of the last four full financial years, by each category (stillbirth, neonatal, extended perinatal, post-neonatal and infant deaths). My preferred format is MS Excel.

NHS Shetland has recently received and responded to very similar requests:

https://www.nhsshetland.scot/directory-record/3678/maternity-related-deaths

https://www.nhsshetland.scot/directory-record/3679/maternity-related-deaths

Our response is unchanged:

Please see the response here for the level of detail that NHS Shetland is able to provide about SAERs: https://www.nhsshetland.scot/directory-record/3230/saers

Releasing any further detail, including identifying which incidents, if any, related to maternity deaths or serious incidents involving maternity related care, would carry too high a risk of identifying individuals.

If the requested information were held by NHS Shetland, it would be subject to exemption under FOISA s 38(1)(b) as read with s 38 (2A) as the information would constitute personal data and disclosure would breach the confidentiality of data subjects.

As such, NHS Shetland considers that revealing whether or not the information exists or is held by NHS Shetland would be contrary to the public interest and is refusing this request under FOISA s 18(1).