FOI240043: Obstetric staffing

Released 13 May 2024

Request:

Initial request received on 12 March 2024 (our reference FOI231063):

I am emailing under the Freedom of Information Act to request information regarding Obstetrics staffing in your Trust for the financial years 2015/16, until FY 2022/23.

The financial year is the period between April 1^st to March 31^st of the following year (e.g., 01/04/2022 to 31/03/2023).

(This is laid out in the attached Excel).

Please answer the following questions regarding your obstetricians in each financial year, split by grade (as per NHS staffing listed grades) when needed.

Ideally, please provide the answers regarding the staffing you had each October, but it can be another month of the year if October is not available.

FY 2022/23

1. How many full-time equivalent (FTE) obstetricians did you have in October?
   1. Consultant
   2. Associate Specialist
   3. Specialty Doctor
   4. Specialty Registrar
   5. Core Training
   6. Foundation Doctor Year 2
   7. Foundation Doctor Year 1
   8. Staff Grade
   9. Other and Local HCHS Doctor Grades
   10. Hospital Practitioner / Clinical Assistant
2. Did you have a 24/7 consultant obstetrician on call?
3. Was the consultant obstetrician on-call on-site, or were they off-site (e.g., at home)?
4. How many full-time equivalent (FTE) vacancies did you have for consultant obstetricians?
5. What was the expenditure on agency/locum for consultant obstetricians?

As mentioned before, please provide the same answers for the previous financial years (from FY 2015/16 until FY 2022/23)

Assistance provided to applicant under section 16 [duty to assist] on 26 March 2024:

Firstly, it is important to note that University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has only been in operation since 1 April 2021, following the merger of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Information about the Trust’s seven hospitals can be found on our website.

The legacy Trusts used different administration and reporting systems and therefore data relevant to periods of time prior to the merger will require separate research and validation. Due to the time and effort required to compile historical information all the way back to 2015/16, the provision of data prior to April 2021 will not be possible within the ‘appropriate limit’ as outlined in the Fees Regulations and section 12 [cost limit] provision of the FOIA is applicable based on the current scope of your request.

As it relates to the whole of your request, are you seeking Trust-wide information or information specific to one of our hospitals?

Regarding question 1, the Trust uses the NHS Electronic Staff Record [ESR] system to report staffing information. The closest coding identified relevant to obstetricians is the occupation code “040” which is for medical staff working within obstetrics and gynaecology. It is not possible to split this data into the granular detail that you have requested.

Please could you confirm that you are happy to receive this alternative data? 

For question 4, vacancies are reported from the Trust’s Financial General Ledger and not ESR, meaning that medical vacancies cannot be identified in the way that you have requested for this question. The Trust can provide a report relevant to medical vacancies for both “Obstetrics & Gynaecology and “Women’s Services” which are likely to contain some Gynaecology Medical Staff.

Again, can you please confirm that you are happy to accept this alternative data?

Additionally, the staffing type for ‘consultant’ is not recorded by pay scale, so we cannot confirm that we will be able to provide information relevant to every consultant post during this period. 

Reply received from applicant on 10 April 2024:

Please can you send the Trust-wide data since the merger? I am happy to receive the information as you’ve outlined.

In line with the section 45 FOI Code of Practice, the revised request was allocated a new reference number (our reference FOI240043) and the statutory deadline reset.

Information disclosed:

1. Please see the table below for information relevant to questions 1 and 4 of your request. This information is taken from the Trust’s Financial Ledger:

Please note due to staff retention policies in place during the pandemic, there were occasions when there were more staff in post than was covered under the service budget. Where this was the case the number of vacancies appears as a negative figure.

2. Yes

3. Off-site

4. Please see the table provided above.

5. Please see the table below for information relevant to your request:

Please note this information is taken from the financial ledger and covers consultant medical agency expenditure for Obstetrics and Gynaecology. We are unable to provide any further breakdown as information is not held in this way on our financial system.

Section 12 provision [cost limit] of the FOIA is applicable at this time.