Request 1
Have you had any cases of restricted drugs being stolen or that have been reported missing/unaccounted for from your Trust in the past 12 months? (or in the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available)
Response 1
No thefts reported.
With regard to drugs that are missing/unaccounted for. Once a discrepancy is raised it is reviewed for accuracy, some discrepancies are resolved quickly, e.g. error on documentation, these are not reported formally.
Discrepancies are reported on a system called Datix (introduced in April 2007) as a clinical incident as there is no code associated with drug discrepancies.
We have established that it would take more than 18 hours to locate all the information you have asked for. From the April 2007 there were 2892 clinical incident records. To locate the record on Datix and search for the information for drug incidents/near misses would take an average of 1 minute per record, over 48 hours. In addition there are approximately 723 manual records for the year prior to the installation of Datix. Each of these records would take approx. 10 minutes to locate and review, an additional 120 hours - 168 hours in total. Therefore we consider that the exemption offered to us in S.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 relating to the cost of compliance is applied, since we are of the opinion that the costs which we are allowed under the Act exceeds £450. As you will be aware this is not an exemption which requires us to consider the application of the public interest test.
Request 2
If yes, in each case, what types of drugs were stolen, missing/unaccounted for and in what quantity and how much did they cost?.
Response 2
As response to question 1
Request 3
In how many cases were culprits identified? In each case, were the culprits patients, visitors, staff members or others (e.g. burglars)? If they were staff members, what were their jobs?
Response 3
As response to question 1
Request 4
In each case, were the culprits convicted in a court of law? If they were staff members, were they sacked?
Response 4
Re theft NA
Please provide all the above information for the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available and for the four years prior to that.
See response to question 1
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