Personal Demographics Service (PDS)

[georginaplatt]

What

You must use PDS if you're building products and services and need to access or manage patient demographic data.

What is PDS? The Personal Demographics Service (PDS) is a national database of NHS patient details such as:

NHS number name address date of birth related people registered GP It helps healthcare professionals identify patients and match them to their health records. It also allows them to contact and communicate with patients. It supports information standard ISB 0149 NHS number (on NHS Digital's website).

Why

• What evidence do you have that services across the NHS need it? - Research evidence to be added
• What evidence do you have that it meets the needs of the users of those services? - Research evidence to be added

The System Design Authority (SDA) approves inclusion of common tools in the service manual. It has approved PDS.

For a technology or tool to be added to section 11 of the NHS digital service standard it must:

have a clear onboarding process for integration into a product or service be well documented, including support information for developers and users have a transparent and robust assurance process support national standards

Anything else

We're very interested in hearing what you think about the standards and technology section of the service manual and how it might, or might not, help you develop digital services in health.

[andrew-nhsbt]

"You must use PDS if you're building products and services and need to access or manage patient demographic data."

Would be good to clarify the geographic scope of this requirement, specifically for UK-wide services vs England-only. Until we've got UK-wide coverage on PDS this requirement will need to be caveated for UK-wide services, such as UK Organ Donor register.