Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘I would like to know about death in service payments and early medical retirement cases in the NHS pension scheme for those suffering from mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. I would be interested to know cases in the last 15 years or less if information is available but not for that period and a breakdown on gender and job role.’

Your request was received on 24 March 2023 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Mesothelioma retirements

This information has been provided by our medical advisers, in order to identify cases before July 2017 manual interrogation would be required, as this is when our current medical adviser contract commenced.

2017 (pro rata from July that year) - 0

2018 - 0

2019 - 0

2020 – fewer than 5 (Section 40)

2021 - 0

2022 – fewer than 5 (Section 40)

Section 40

Please be aware that I have decided not to release the full details where the total number of members falls below five. This is because the members could be identified, when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available.

This information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3 (a) of the Freedom of Information Act. This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:

a) it is not fair to disclose patients’ personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.

b) these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of the patients.

Annex A

Section 40 - Personal information

(1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if - a. it constitutes personal data which do not fall within subsection (1), and b. either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.

(3) The first condition is - a. in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition of "data" in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene - i. any of the data protection principles, or ii. section 10 of that Act (right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress), and b. in any other case, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene any of the data protection principles if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(4) The second condition is that by virtue of any provision of Part IV of the Data Protection Act 1998 the information is exempt from section 7(1)(c) of that Act (data subject's right of access to personal data).

(5) The duty to confirm or deny - a. does not arise in relation to information which is (or if it were held by the public authority would be) exempt information by virtue of subsection (1), and b. does not arise in relation to other information if or to the extent that either - i. the giving to a member of the public of the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act) contravene any of the data protection principles or section 10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 or would do so if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of that Act were disregarded, or ii. by virtue of any provision of Part IV of the Data Protection Act 1998 the information is exempt from section 7(1)(a) of that Act (data subject's right to be informed whether personal data being processed).

(6) In determining for the purposes of this section whether anything done before 24th October 2007 would contravene any of the data protection principles, the exemptions in Part III of Schedule 8 to the Data Protection Act 1998 shall be disregarded.

(7) In this section - "the data protection principles" means the principles set out in Part I of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998, as read subject to Part II of that Schedule and section 27(1) of that Act; "data subject" has the same meaning as in section 1(1) of that Act; "personal data" has the same meaning as in section 1(1) of that Act.

Data Protection Act 1998 Schedule 1 First Principle

(1) Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless-

(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and

(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

Ill Health Retirements & Death in Service cases

A copy of the data is attached. Please note, A breakdown of gender, role and medical condition would require manual interrogation, estimated to take 10 minutes per case (please note: for death in service cases, we do not require confirmation of the cause of death, so this may not be held on all records).

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data please contact nhsbsa.foirequests@nhs.net ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement:

“NHSBSA Copyright 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.