The Western Trust collects personal information from patients / clients in order to provide the most appropriate treatment and care. We also collect and hold information about our services to ensure they are efficient and are meeting the needs of our community.
On this website we publish a lot of information about who we are and what we do. However there may be things about the Trust and our services or business which you would like further information on. There is different legislation governing the rights of individuals to access information, depending on the type of information you would like to access. If the information you require is not available on this website, you can request it directly from the Trust using the relevant legislation, as detailed below.
Information requests generated by an AI Tool (eg CoPilot, Chat GPT, Claude etc)
The Information Commissioner has produced guidance on the use of AI tools to author information requests (Freedom of Information Requests or Subject Access Requests). Please be aware should the AI generated request be too jargonistic or unnecessarily complex, the Trust will not process it and ask that you reword the request in plain English.
Please see the extract from the ICO guidance below:
Using AI to help draft information requests?
AI tools can be helpful, but they can also introduce errors or create overly complex requests that increase the burden on public bodies and cost to the taxpayer. When using AI to help draft an information request, please make sure the final wording has been checked and reflects your actual information needs.
Before you submit a request or secondary correspondence, please check that:
You are only asking for the information you are genuinely looking for.
AI tools sometimes generate broad or excessive wording that goes beyond the information you actually want or need;
The request is clear, concise and focused.
Short, straightforward requests are easier for us to process and usually lead to quicker, more accurate responses;
There are no obvious factual inaccuracies.
AI can misrepresent legislation or misstate what organisations do. Please review the text of your request carefully and don’t assume AI is right. If it has referred to something you don’t understand, check what it is; and
The tone is appropriate.
AI-generated content can sometimes sound abrupt, or otherwise inappropriate. Please check the tone before sending.
Why does this matter?
Public authorities are seeing an increase in requests and secondary correspondence that appear to have been drafted by generative AI. These can require additional clarification because of inaccuracies or unnecessary complexity. This creates delays for both requesters and the public organisations receiving requests. And if you need to bring a complaint to us, it can make it more difficult for us handle your case.
Source: Information Commissioner’s Office
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Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
The Freedom of Information Act provides a right of access to official or corporate information held by the Trust and other public authorities. This legislation applies to recorded information about the business of the Trust; (please see the separate section below to enquire about access to personal information)
Requests for official information about the Trust are dealt with through our Freedom of Information office. For more information about making an FOI request and how we process them, click here.
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Access to Personal Information
Like all public and private organisations, the Trust is legally obliged to protect any personal information we hold, including information about our patients, clients and staff. Personal information held by the Trust will be processed in accordance with the General Data protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Data Protection legislation also gives everyone the right to access their own personal information. This is known as a ‘subject access request’. Separate legislation applies to requests for a deceased person’s health records.
To find out more about how we use personal health and social care information and how you can access personal information please click here.