NHS Digital

NHS Digital runs the Spine service for the NHS, which is a central, secure system for patient data in England.[3] This enables a number of services for patients, including:

• the Electronic Prescription Service, which sends prescriptions digitally from GP surgeries and other NHS providers to pharmacies, without needing a printed prescription[10]
• the Summary Care Record which allows authorised NHS staff (such as hospital or ambulance staff) to see a summary of important information about a patient, to help give the best care.[11]
• the e-referral service which manages the booking of first time appointments with hospitals and specialists[12]
• the Child Protection - Information Sharing system, which helps ensure that any child protection concerns are known by the NHS when they are treated[13]

As the HSCIC, the organisation ran the care.data programme, which was cancelled in 2016.

NHS Digital collects the national 'Hospital Episode Statistics' (HES), which is a record of every 'episode' of admitted patient care (counted by completing care with a consultant, meaning that more than one episode can be associated with a single stay in hospital[14]) delivered by the NHS in England, including those done under contract by private providers. This involves the tracking of around 16 million 'episodes' of care every year.[15] This information is used for a range of statistical analysis, as well as for determining payments to providers. In addition to admitted patient care, HES also provides data for outpatient and emergency care encounters. The Emergency Care Data Set has been created to replace HES A&E data and provide better data on emergency care encounters.[16]

In November 2019 it launched the National Record Locator, which spans different health economies and is intended to enable paramedics, community mental health nurses, children’s health teams and maternity services to access the records of mental health patients across England.[17]

In August 2020 it launched a pilot electronic prescription service in three hospital trusts, where hospital prescriptions were sent electronically to the patient’s community pharmacy, as during the COVID-19 pandemic in England most outpatient consultations were held remotely. [18]

A troubleshooting operation was established in 2018 to help NHS trusts when major IT deployments go wrong. Eight trusts needed emergency assistance in 2018 after a deployment led to severe service disruptions. Funding of £2 million a year for the service has been allocated and expansion is expected.[19]

NHS Digital compiles national data about the NHS and social care, with over 260 publications every year.[2] In addition, they provide data analysis, and access to data and clinical indicators.

The NHS website www.nhs.uk, formerly NHS Choices, is the public website for the NHS Services in England, and is run by a team at NHS Digital, mandated by DOH with input from Public Health England. In November 2022 it had been visited more than one billion times in the previous 12 months.[20]