Ms X and St James's Hospital

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Senior Investigator
• Judgment Date: 19 May 2020
• Case Outcome: The Senior Investigator affirmed the decision of the Hospital.
• Respondent: St James's Hospital
• Record Number: OIC-61120-F0M8G0
• Court: Information Commission

Whether the Hospital was justified in refusing an application made under section 9 of the Act for the amendment of a record of an alleged incident involving the applicant on the ground that the applicant has not shown that the information that is the subject of the application is, on the balance of probabilities, incomplete, incorrect or misleading.

19 May 2020

Background

On 12 July 2019, the applicant in this case submitted a request to the Hospital for a copy of an incident report that was created following an alleged incident involving her in a unit of the Hospital on a date in March 2017. It appears the unit manager banned her from visiting the unit following the alleged incident. In response, the Hospital provided the applicant with a copy of the report sought, which contained a hand-written account of the alleged incident.

On 29 October 2019, the applicant submitted an application for the amendment of the record on the ground that the account given was untrue and did not accurately represent what happened. She said the Unit manager had subsequently given her a different account of the alleged incident that was also untrue.

On 14 November 2019, the Hospital refused the application for amendment. The applicant sought an internal review of that decision on 2 December 2019. Among other things, she argued that the description of the alleged incident in the record did not correspond with the unit manager’s description of the matter during their subsequent meeting. She indicated that she was seeking the real reason for the decision to ban her from visiting the unit.

On 20 January 2020, the applicant sought a review by this Office of the Hospital’s deemed refusal of her application for internal review. The Hospital issued a late internal review decision on 24 January 2020, wherein it affirmed the refusal of the application for amendment of the record on the ground that the applicant provided no information to suggest that amendment was warranted. The applicant subsequently informed this Office that she wished the review to proceed.

I have now completed my review in accordance with section 22(2) of the FOI Act. In carrying out this review, I have had regard to the communications between the parties, as above, and those between this Office and the parties on the matter. I have decided to conclude this review by way of a formal, binding decision.

Scope of Review

This review is concerned solely with whether the Hospital was justified in refusing the application made under section 9 of the Act for the amendment of a record of an alleged incident involving the applicant.

Analysis and Findings

Section 9 of the...