Team nominated for national award
Date of release: 10 February 2025
An award-winning team in Wolverhampton has been nominated for a national honour to recognise its efficiency.
Four members of the IG Team, from left: Yusha Kazi, Nicolle Bunt, Amie Dawson and Joanne Jackson. Unfortunately Raz Edwards and Zara Dhir were unavailable
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s Data Security and Protection Team, which is responsible for the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests received, has been shortlisted for FOI Team of the Year by eCase.
FOI allows people to ask to see information held by the public sector to ensure it is transparent and accountable to the people it serves.
The team aims to ensure responses to the large number of FOI requests are provided within 20 days and are accurate.
It works collaboratively to support Amie Dawson, FOI Officer, by thoroughly checking and applying relevant exemptions before the requests are sent for departmental sign-off, prior to responses being released.
Raz Edwards, Head of Data Security and Protection/Data Protection Officer at RWT, leads the six-strong team comprising Nicolle Bunt, Information Governance (IG) Manager, IG Officers Zara Dhir and Jo Jackson, Yusha Kazi, IG Support Officer, and Amie.
Raz said: “It’s great to be recognised for our efforts to support this regulatory requirement.
“FOI is an important public function to ensure the Trust is accountable to the public and supports transparency, giving an insight how the organisation makes decisions and spends money.
“We also recognise the important contribution of the many FOI co-ordinators across the organisation who support with collating information and responding to FOIs.”
Amie, who manages the requests, said: “Getting the recognition of being nominated means a lot and I’m proud to work with such a great team which takes pride in freedom of information.”
Credited with an outstanding audit in 2023, the team continually ensures robust safety checks on data before it is released to the public.
It carries out analysis to identify trends so it is able to publish information – such as policies and spend data – more proactively to reduce the number of FOIs the Trust has to process, and supports public transparency.
The team was RWT’sHealthcare Heroes’ Non-Clinical Team of the Year at the internal 2024 Royal Awards, 2020 IG Team of the Year – awarded by the national Strategic IG network – and it was rated outstanding in the FOI audit bin 2024.
Ecase, a correspondence case management service, hosts the event on Wednesday, 5 March at the IET London: Savoy Place.
Raz is also a speaker at the prestigious event.
ENDS
- For further information, please email tim.nash2@nhs.net
