Sir, we are receiving a growing number of requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) to supply details of decisions made by the Primary Care Trusts that relate to Individual Funding Review (IFR) cases. Each of these requests has considerable resource implications and means that what would have been allocated for patient care is being spent on bureaucratic processes.

Whilst we totally support the arguments behind the need for an FoI, its original purpose was to help ensure public accountability in decision making. It was not designed to help achieve an improved response rate for a particular research project, the value of which could be challenged.

We would suggest that those overseeing postgraduate projects ensure that when reviewing the methodology adopted for research it specifically excludes the use of the FoI Act as an instrument to try and improve response rates.