From: Susie Colley, Director, Save Torbay Hospital Ltd
To: Information Governance Team, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust
Copied to: the campaign's legal adviser and others
Subject: Request for Internal Review - FOI ref TSD10884 (Gadeon House) - and new FOI request

Dear Information Governance Team,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Request for Internal Review
Your ref: TSD10884, response dated 23 October 2026

I write on behalf of Save Torbay Hospital to request an internal review of the Trust's handling of the above request. I set out my grounds below. If the review does not resolve them, I will refer the matter to the Information Commissioner under section 50.

PART A - GROUNDS FOR INTERNAL REVIEW

1. Planning and change of use (Question 1)

I asked for the records showing how the Trust assessed the planning position before signing the lease. The response gives a conclusion: that office use and pathology laboratory use fall within the same use class. It does not provide any record of how that conclusion was reached. The response does not say which use class the Trust relies on, who made the assessment, or whether any legal or planning advice was obtained.

Under section 1(1) of the Act, the Trust must either provide the recorded information it holds or confirm that it holds none. Please therefore:

• (a) provide all records of the planning assessment, including any internal notes, emails, advice from solicitors, estates advisers or planning consultants, and any correspondence with the landlord or with Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on the point; or
• (b) confirm in writing that no such record exists.

Please also state which use class the Trust says covers both the existing and the proposed use.

This matters because a cellular pathology laboratory is not an ordinary laboratory. It handles human tissue and clinical waste, uses formalin and other hazardous chemicals, and carries infection-control requirements. Planning permission 25/0538/FUL concerned alterations for a different organisation's proposed laboratory use. The response does not show that anyone assessed whether that permission, and the use-class position, covers a histopathology service with these specific requirements.

2. Section 22 exemption (Questions 2a, 2b, 2c)

I do not accept that section 22 has been properly applied, for the following reasons.

(a) No public interest test. Section 22 is a qualified exemption. Under sections 2(2)(b) and 17(3), the Trust must weigh the public interest in maintaining the exemption against the public interest in disclosure, and must explain its reasoning. The response contains no public interest test at all.

(b) No evidence of a settled intention to publish. Section 22 applies only where, at the time of the request, the Trust held the information with a view to publication at a future date. The response gives no date and no timetable. It says only that the Full Business Case will be published once governance is complete. Please state the intended publication date and provide evidence that the intention to publish existed at the date of my request.

(c) The estimated cost is information already held. I asked for the estimated cost of the fit-out, not the final cost. On 26 March 2026 the Chief Executive and Chair authorised the Trust to commit the associated capital funding. The Trust cannot have committed capital without an estimate of cost. Any estimate held at that date is existing information that does not depend on a future business case. It should be disclosed.

(d) The figures are inconsistent. The response states that the Trust received £4.6 million of NHS England capital funding. The Cellular Pathology Options Appraisal enclosed with the same response (paragraph 1) states that the Trust was awarded approximately £6.62 million of capital funding. The Trust has also publicly acknowledged further expenditure of approximately £250,000 (recently published in the minutes with the histopathology staff). Please explain the difference and provide a breakdown of all capital and revenue sums awarded, committed, or spent on the Gadeon House project to date. Information already spent or committed cannot reasonably be described as intended for future publication.

3. Incomplete disclosure of minutes and papers (Questions 3b, 3c, 3d)

I asked for the minutes and papers for every meeting at which the decision was discussed or approved. The Trust's own answer to Question 3a identifies four decision points, but disclosed papers for only two. The following are missing:

• (a) the record of the urgent decision taken by the Chief Executive and Chair on 26 March 2026, including the paper or briefing on which it was based, and any record of why the matter was urgent;
• (b) the papers and minutes of the private Board session on 2 April 2026, or a redacted version with the specific exemptions cited;
• (c) the papers and minutes of the public Board meeting on 7 May 2026 relating to the retrospective endorsement;
• (d) the second paper on lease arrangements and the operating business case which, according to the minutes of 19 March 2026 (item 2.11), was to be brought to a subsequent Executive Committee meeting, together with the minutes of that meeting;
• (e) the papers and minutes of the Extraordinary Executive Committee meeting that the minutes of 19 February 2026 record was to be arranged to review the Histopathology options paper.

Under Question 3d I asked for any record of the reasons for not discussing the item in public. The response explains the Board's meeting schedule but provides no record of the reasons for taking the item in private. Please provide that record or confirm that none exists.

4. Redactions

Large parts of both sets of Executive Committee minutes are blacked out. The response does not cite any exemption for these redactions or say that the redacted material falls outside the scope of my request. Under section 17, the Trust must state which exemption it relies on for each part withheld. Please either confirm that every redacted section is unrelated to cellular pathology, histopathology, Gadeon House, the related capital funding or the lease, or identify the exemption applied to each redaction.

PART B - NEW REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Please treat the following as a new request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The Options Appraisal rejects Option 3 because the timescales were too long for available funding deadlines, and Option 5 because the timeline was unlikely to meet capital expenditure deadlines. The lease began on 31 March 2026, the last day of the financial year, five days after the urgent decision. Please provide:

1. The bid or application for the capital funding used for cellular pathology at Gadeon House (whether £4.6 million, £6.62 million or any other sum), including the date of the application, who made it, and the purpose stated in it.
2. The award letter or notification from NHS England, the ICB or any other body, including all conditions attached, any deadline by which the money had to be committed or spent, and any record of what would happen to the funding if that deadline were missed.
3. Any record of when the Trust first became aware of that deadline, and any record of when the Trust first identified Gadeon House as a site for its cellular pathology service.
4. Any clinical risk assessment of sample pathways, courier times or turnaround times completed before 26 March 2026. The Options Appraisal itself records that clinical pathways had not been assessed and that there was a risk to the Torbay population if the service moved at pace. If no assessment was completed before the lease was entered into, please say so.
5. Any assessment of workforce risk made before 26 March 2026, given the Appraisal's own warning that moving the service twice risked resignations and significant destabilisation of the service.
6. Any record of consultation or engagement with the Health and Wellbeing Board, Torbay Council's health scrutiny committee, Healthwatch, patients or the public about the relocation of cellular pathology services.

The Trust's own appraisal warned that clinical pathways had not been assessed and that moving at pace could put patients at risk. Within a week the lease was committed. The public is entitled to know whether a funding deadline drove that decision instead of patient safety. There is the strongest possible public interest in disclosure.

Please acknowledge receipt of both parts of this email. I look forward to the outcome of the internal review within 20 working days, as the ICO recommends, and to your response to Part B within the statutory 20 working days.

Kindest regards

Susie Colley
Director, Save Torbay Hospital Ltd

From: Susie Colley, Director, Save Torbay Hospital Ltd, and Chair of Torquay Chamber of Commerce
To: Freedom of Information Officer, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust
Copied to: the Chief Executive, Members of Parliament and others
Subject: Gadeon House

Dear Sir or Madam,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Gadeon House

Torbay Council has confirmed in its FOI response (ref. 21410301, dated 28 September 2026) that the Trust first approached the Council about leasing part of Gadeon House on 1 February 2026, that a 15-year lease began on 31 March 2026, and that the proposed use is "some type of laboratory." The Council also states that it was not privy to any due diligence by the Trust and that the Trust has not asked it for any funding.

Please provide the following information:

1. Planning and change of use. Gadeon House is currently an office building. Has the Trust, or anyone acting on its behalf, applied to the relevant local planning authority for a change of use to laboratory use, or sought pre-application advice? Please provide copies of any applications, correspondence or advice received. If no application has been made, please provide any records showing how the Trust assessed the planning position before signing the lease.

2. Funding of the fit-out.

• a) What is the estimated cost of fitting out Gadeon House as a laboratory?
• b) What is the source of this funding (e.g. Trust capital, NHS England, ICB, or other), and has it been approved?
• c) Please provide any options appraisal, business case or other record that considered alternatives, including building a new laboratory or refurbishing existing facilities on the Torbay Hospital site, along with any records explaining why Gadeon House was preferred.

3. Decision-making and transparency.

• a) At which meeting(s) was the decision to lease Gadeon House discussed or approved (e.g. Board, committee, executive group)? Please give the dates.
• b) Who attended each meeting? Names and roles for senior staff and Board members, roles only for others.
• c) Please provide the minutes and papers for those meetings.
• d) Was any item taken in private session? If so, please provide any record of the reasons for not discussing it in public.

I would prefer to receive the information electronically. If any part of this request is refused, please state the exemption relied on and release the remainder.

Please acknowledge receipt.

Yours faithfully

Susie Colley
Director, Save Torbay Hospital Ltd
Chair of Torquay Chamber of Commerce