NHS Forth Valley chiefs have hit back at criticism over the publication of data into bullying cases at the health board over the last five years.
A Freedom of Information request from the Scottish Conservatives queried each of Scotland’s health boards on the number of recorded incidents of bullying from 2017-18 up to the latest data for 2021/22.
The 2021/22 figures have revealed that less than five cases were reported in Forth Valley - with a spokesperson later confirming the actual number was three - but have faced accusations of an “avoidance of scrutiny” over their failure to disclose data for the other four periods.
Forth Valley was one of only two areas which had an incomplete submission to the FOI request, with Ayrshire and Arran also providing no data for 2017/18.
The Tories since appealed NHS Forth Valley’s decision, but have reported that the health board have now upheld their original decision - citing costs as the reason.
The situation has led to further frustration from Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Dean Lockhart, who has urged the Information Commissioner to get involved in the dispute to urge NHS Forth Valley to comply with their request.
Mr Lockhart said: “It cannot be acceptable that NHS Forth Valley are unable to provide this information easily.
“Every one of the other thirteen health boards managed to do so without making a fuss. I am concerned at how the information was kept for such an important matter.
“I have asked that this be pursued with the Information Commissioner although it is to be regretted that our local health board is forcing this course of action by their unhelpful response to a reasonable request.”
However, an NHS Forth Valley spokeswoman told the Observer that the information on bullying cases has been kept within individual staff records and that searching through these records to provide the information would have required “thousands and thousands of hours of work”.
The spokeswoman added: “The review wasn’t upheld on this because there was no way of accessing the case numbers without a large amount of time and effort and there is an exemption for this in the FOI rules.
“We were able to provide information for this year because we can check the number of active cases still open and we have changed the way we record these cases in future.
“This isn’t about the information not being disclosed, it was just not in a format that we could extract it and there was no way we could get the figures without going through staff’s individual records so there is no secrecy about it.”
