FOI-03978

##Request ‘For each of the following years, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 How many ambulance staff suffered death in membership (died before reaching retirement)’ The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 20 July 2026. We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). ##Our response We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA. The NHSBSA cannot confirm or deny if the full scope of the requested information is held, as we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA. We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information. A member’s job title is not something that is recorded on most records as the specific job title is not something that is relevant to a member’s benefits. We hold employment types / capacity codes; however, these are not specific to the level of “ambulance staff”. For example, a “capacity code” of 4 is “non-medical” which ambulance staff would fall into. We may hold this information on AW8 (retirement) forms or death certificates; however, it is not a guarantee that we will hold a member’s job title. To identify any members which fall in scope of your request would require manual interrogation. There are 5,908 records which fall in scope of your request, and we estimate it would take 5 minutes to manually interrogate each record. Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request: 5,908 x 5 minutes = 29,540 minutes (492.33 hours) Due to the way the information is held by NHS Pensions, it is not possible to refine your request within the appropriate limit. Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12 __Data Queries__ Please contact [email protected] ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data. __Reusing the data and copyright__ If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact [email protected] . This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented. The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2026”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence. Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.