Looking up a person in NHS records

[Demotive]

What:

Looking up a person in NHS records by using demographic details.

It is often helpful for clinicians to have sight of information about a user, including their summary care record.

Public-facing digital systems can attempt to "match" a person to the data held in the personal demographics service (PDS) - https://digital.nhs.uk/services/demographics

Data returned from the demographics service can enable someone with the correct authority to then access summary care records and other useful clinical information.

Why

Several digital services attempt to successfully "look up" users in order to provide useful and time saving information to clinicians and users:

• 111 online
• A&E self service tool
• Find your NHS number
• Book a coronavirus vaccination
• National Data Opt-Out
• NHS Login

The existing PDS service can be queried using four pieces of required demographic data:

• name
• date of birth
• postcode (as held by registered GP)
• ~"gender"*~

We want to establish a best practice approach to:

• asking these questions
• explaining why we’re asking them
• asking these questions in relation to the service context
• coping with match failures
• ~avoid asking about "gender"~
• ~asking "gender" in a sensitive fashion if it must be asked~
• ~explaining when asking "gender" might be necessary~

[Demotive]

* "gender" referring to the PDS field of the same name

[Demotive]

update

For anyone building services that require a PDS lookup or anyone following the work last year on sex/gender questions. See below for an update from the PDS team: It is now possible to perform “standard” (non-fuzzy) searches without having to specify the patient’s gender. Searching without gender is likely to slightly improve match rates, and also means you can avoid having to ask citizens their gender, which can be a sensitive topic for some people.

The change is available now in our sandbox and integration test environments. It will be available in production from this Friday.

This is a non-breaking change – if you are searching with gender, this will continue to work as-is.

For more details, see https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-fhir#api-Default-searchPatient

This is a very big win for inclusive design so thank you to everyone who helped champion this cause. And special thanks to the PDS team for all the hard work to make this happen.

[Demotive]

notes

Hint text: the dependency on context.

The contrast between a "clerical" service setting (ie Find my NHS number) where hints tie quite closely to "registered GP" and a care service (like 111) where hints are simpler (or even not there at all).

A clinical service may acceptably take a hit on matches, as there's scope to re-attempt PDS further on in a healthcare journey. A "clerical" service could aim for more precision around field descriptions, as further attempts at matching might not be a viable route.

[emma-parnell]

• Important to know the distinction between fuzzy and non-fuzzy matching
• If using non-fuzzy the details need to match exactly to what is held by your GP which informs how questions are worded
• Important to understand the different APIs available to connect to

[Demotive]

New shiny FHIR compliant API docs: https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-fhir

Legacy API docs: https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-hl7-v3 https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-smsp

[Demotive]

* Important to know the distinction between fuzzy and non-fuzzy matching

FHIR API:

• https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-fhir#non-fuzzy-search
• https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/personal-demographics-service-fhir#fuzzy-search

[sarawilcox]

See also Asking users for sex or gender