Need to broaden scope of FOI legislation to private healthcare

There may be a case for bringing private healthcare companies and producers of medical devices within the scope of freedom of information-style legislation to prevent a scenario where records are destroyed to the detriment of the injured party.

That is according to William Binchy, former Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College Dublin, who addressed the second national FOI conference in Kilkenny yesterday.

Prof Binchy said some producers of medical devices “have a very sharp or stern policy” regarding retention and disposing of records “such that they will dispose of records very shortly after they’ve been made, certainly on the electronic side”.