Please can you answer the following questions relating to your Physiotherapy Outpatients Department?

1. Number of referrals made annually to the service for the last 3 years from GP’s.

2. Number of staff employed to manage the GP referrals. Please give details of designation, banding and whole time equivalents.

3. Number of consultant referrals to Physiotherapy Outpatients Department for the last 3 years.

4. Number of staff employed to manage these referrals. Please give details of designation, banding and whole time equivalents.

The Trust does hold this information. However, we are withholding this information, under exemption 43 (commercial interests) of the Freedom of Information Act: The Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).

The combination of the referral numbers and the current resource and banding will prejudice the commercial interests of the Trust. We are aware of several local MSK departments whose service has been taken over by large private providers who have reviewed information such as this to offer a tender with reduced resource and costs.

Our banding and service activity is based on specialisms that are unique to our MSK staff – that have been supported through a competency programme with Trust and CCG backing and could affect the bargaining position of the Trust in terms of its current innovation and service developments across multiple directorates. If this service is then converted to non NHS private providers the risk is that in the undercutting of the tender the specialist skills will be lost which will be detrimental to the public in terms of access to the right care compromising their clinical outcomes and our quality framework.