Written question asked by Derek Wyatt (Labour) on Friday, 12 January 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 16 January 2007. It was answered by Caroline Flint (Labour) on Monday, 5 February 2007 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Data Sets

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether general practitioners and hospital computer systems share a common address base for their patients.

Answer: National health service patient address and other demographic information has historically been compiled in individual local records held by general practitioners and hospitals. Information, including changes of address, is sometimes shared in the course of referrals, but data held by one NHS body may not always reflect changes notified to another.Over time, a single authoritative source of patient demographic data, known as the personal demographics service (PDS), will be used by all general practitioners and hospital computer systems in England. Access to the PDS will reduce clinical risks arising from a failure to match patients with their clinical record, and help minimise cases of correspondence and documents being misdirected. Early evidence from one trust has shown a six-fold reduction in misdirected mail addressed using PDS-held data.The PDS, which first went live in June 2004, already contains information for all the patients within England, and is currently accessible across the NHS, with over 310,000 users, and receives over 26 million inquiries per month. The volumes are growing over time, with increasing patient benefits and efficiency improvements.There will be no physical or electronic links between the PDS other non-NHS databases, and other Government departments and public agencies will not be able to access the data it contains.

Secondary information