Freedom of Information request about prescription only medicines (FOI-21-442)
Published 28 June 2021
© Crown copyright 2021
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-responses-from-the-mhra-week-commencing-17-may-2021/freedom-of-information-request-about-prescription-only-medicines-foi-21-442
Thank you for your FOI request of 22 April in which you asked for:
Any current internal guidance relating to non-parenteral administration of Prescription only Medications without a prescription, along with any previous guidance that has been in force over the past 5 years
Copies of any advice that has been given to individuals and/or organisations non-parenteral administration of Prescription only Medications without a prescription
I can confirm that the MHRA does hold some of the information that you have requested. However, we have also determined that the information is exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and we cannot process your request any further.
Section 12 of the Act allows public authorities to refuse requests where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 24 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
In order to process your request, we would need to review all correspondence received by several mailboxes and individual accounts over an unspecified number of years to establish exactly what information we hold. We consider that this would take longer than 24 working hours to complete.
We advise that you narrow your request by, for example, specifying a timeframe. If you have a particular scenario or medicine in mind, please let us know and we can offer advice on that.
Please note that substantially similar requests made within 60 working days of an original request can be aggregated into one for the purposes of calculating a cost limit, meaning that section 12 could still apply.
If you disagree with how we have interpreted the Freedom of Information Act 2000 with regards to your request, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed. The review would be carried out by a senior member of the Agency who was not involved with the original decision.
If you have a query about the information provided, please reply to this email.
Kind regards,
MHRA Customer Service Centre
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 4PU