Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 gives you a general right of access to recorded information held by public authorities.

The Act is to make public sector bodies more open and accountable. It also helps you to understand how we carry out our duties, why we make the decisions we do and how we spend public money.

The Act gives you the right to request information held by us, unless there are good reasons not to do so.


Making an FOI request

FOI requests can be made by anyone from anywhere in the world.

You may wish to look at our Publication Scheme to see if any of the information we already published is what you require.

If you would like to make a request for information that is not contained within the publication scheme you can contact us in one of the following ways:

  • e-mail using the Trusts FOI mailbox bchft.foi@nhs.net
  • by post to the following address:

    Freedom of Information Team
    Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
    Europa Boulevard
    Westbrook
    Warrington
    Cheshire
    WA5 7TY

Please remember to include your address and describe in as much detail as you can the information that you require.


What happens next?

We will acknowledge your request by post or e-mail as soon as possible.

In order for us to ensure the information is valid and appropriate exceptions applied where needed, we will not complete your online forms, we will reply in writing to a valid email address.

There may be times when we need to contact you because it is not clear what information you require.

We will provide you with the information that you have requested within 20 working days, however there may be times when we need to consider if the information you are asking for is exempt from disclosure.

This can, on a very rare occasion, take a little more time, so we will ask you if this is acceptable.

If some or all of the information that you have requested is exempt we will let you know why it is not available. .

Most of the information that we provide is free of charge, however if there is a charge we will let you know as soon as possible and you will told how much this will cost.

Details of how to pay the fee will be given to you at the time.

Sometimes the information that you are requesting may exceed what is known as “the appropriate limit”.

This means that we may have to tell you that we cannot provide the information unless you pay the fee.

You could however think of modifying your request to bring the cost down and we will try and help you to do that.

If you are unhappy with how we have dealt with your request, you can ask for us to review this. We will provide details of this in our reply to you, or you can contact:

Freedom of Information Team
Bridgewater Headquarters
Europa Point, Europa Boulevard
Warrington
Cheshire
WA5 7TY

Email: Bchft.foi@nhs.net


Bridgewater Patient Privacy Notice

Read our full Patient Privacy Notice.

Children’s Privacy Notice

Read our full Children’s Privacy Notice.