I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act, which I received on 25 September 2023 for information about the following:

Under Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information:

1. How many people have made applications to EIBSS for a hepatitis C infection from Intramuscular Immunoglobulin or Intramuscular Gammaglobulin?

2. How many people have made applications to EIBSS for a hepatitis C infection from Intramuscular Immunoglobulin or Intramuscular Gammaglobulin at the British Airways health/travel centre?

Response

1,103 applications have been received for Hepatitis C stage 1 since the scheme inception on 1 November 2017, and 3,222 were received prior to this, totalling 4,325.

To answer both question 1 and 2 would require a manual search of all 4,325 applications. We estimate a minimum of 20 minutes per case, and some cases may take considerably longer depending on how much information there is to check. If the information is recorded, it would be in free text and could be written in various locations of the EIBSS record.

4,325 cases x 20 minutes = 1,441.7 hours

Therefore, I estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the NHSBSA is not obliged to comply with your request and I will not be processing your request further.