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Data Access Request Service (DARS) charges

Find out about estimated DARS service charges listed by service component.

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Prices for applications from 1 July 2025  

Our pricing review recently concluded. It found that, due to steadily increasing operational and production costs since 2018 when current prices were set, we are now required to increase our charges to ensure that services are sustainable and cover costs. This increase reflects cumulative CPI inflation since the last price review and ensures the service remains sustainable on a cost-recovery basis

New prices take effect from 1 July 2025. These apply to applications accepted by the Data Access after that date, including new applications, and requests for extensions, renewals or amendments to existing agreements. Pricing within existing agreements remains unchanged, unless an extension, renewal or amendment is being requested and is accepted and agreed after 1 July 2025.

How our charges are calculated

NHS England is publicly funded and we operate on a cost-recovery basis. We do not charge for data but we do apply charges to cover the cost of processing and delivering our service. We ensure charges are applied fairly and consistently, broadly determined by the amount of effort and approvals required.  An annual review of charges informs any changes to prices for implementation each April.

Charges are calculated on the following components:

  • where or how the data is accessed, for example, the extract service, SDE service or NHS DigiTrials
  • the type of application
  • the volume of data requested including any data linkage
  • the frequency that you require data 

Should the volume and complexity of requests require additional development work, these may be subject to additional charges and confirmed during the application process. 

Actual costs will be agreed with the customer during the application process. 

We also offer data services to support clinical trials and research. Find out about NHS DigiTrials and the NHS England Secure Data Environment.

Table of charges

Table of charges for applications accepted and agreed from 1 July 2025

Table of charges  Prices to 30 June 2025  Prices from 1 July 2025
Charges for DARS application 
Service components - Unit cost Unit cost 
Application type New application £1030 £1320 
Amendment/renewal/extension -  £820 £1050 
Annual review fee1 - £500 £640
Charges DARS Extract Service      
Data volumes Per period (for example, monthly, quarterly or annual) per dataset2 £320 £410
Dissemination  Per dissemination3 £930 £1190
Service required  Bespoke data linkage per dataset per dissemination4 £2060 £2640
Initial tracing pack - £420  £540 
Permission to sub-licence (per annum)  - £10,000  £12,820
Data archive - per year  - £250  £320 

Charges to access the SDE

More details on SDE charging including further optional SDE user account charges and examples of costing scenario’s for the SDE, are available.

These charges are subject to VAT (at the current rate), if applicable.

Footnotes

1. Applies only to agreements covering more than one year, and is charged per every complete year beyond the first year. For example 13 months = one review, 25 months = two reviews. 

2. In addition to standard datasets, such as HES Outpatient and DIDS, this term covers: 

  • reports, for example ONS Mortality/Civil Registration or PROMs - these are provided as individual discrete reports (not necessarily defined by data years), and are charged per report 

  • bridging files, such as HES to ONS Mortality - not defined by data years, these are charged per number of actual bridge files required and their frequency 

  • work packages, such as Mental Health Data 

The Standard Extract Service has been replaced with the provision of regular bespoke extracts, which helps to minimise the data required. It is now costed as a number of individual extracts. 

3.  Applies for each delivery of data (each of which may include multiple datasets). This charge does not apply to medical research reports.

4. Includes linking multiple customer datasets, linking customer (or NHS England developed cohorts) to NHS England data. The linkage fee is charged each time customer data is linked and each time an extract is produced - for example, linking customer data to 3 HES datasets as well as SUS PbR will result in a linkage fee for linkage to HES as well as a linkage fee for linkage to SUS PbR (based on one dissemination of the linked datasets). If more than one dissemination is required, the linkage fees are chargeable each time for each dissemination.

Cost examples

We have provided some different examples of data requests and the associated costs. 

Scenario 1 - New application for a 3 year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA), from a non-commercial organisation. No plans to retain the data beyond the end of the DSA (specific data sets)

Application type: New application for a 3 year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA), from a non-commercial organisation. No plans to retain the data beyond the end of the DSA.

Dissemination: One-off extract of data to be supplied. 

Datasets: Data requested from period 2000/2001 to 2020/2021* (21 Associated Product Years). Products requested for this period:

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care (APC)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Out Patient (OP)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Accident and Emergency (A&E) / Emergency Care Dataset (ECDS)

Civil Registrations (Death) Secondary Care Cut (one off)

Service:  Customer to supply a single cohort who are known to have had a stay in hospital in England. NHS England to perform initial cohort trace. Cohort to be linked to HES data and Civil Registrations (death) Secondary Care Cut.

Costs

Item cost (£) Amount Total
Application type New 1,320 1 1,320
Annual review (3 year DSA) 320 2 640
Dissemination One extract 1,190 1 1,190
Service Initial tracing pack 540 1 540
Bespoke Data Linkage HES 2,640 1 2,640
Bespoke Data Linkage Civil Registration Deaths SCC 2,640 1 2,640
Data sets HES APC 2000/01 – 2020/2021 410 21 8,610
HES OP 2000/01 – 2020/2021 410 21 8,610
HES A&E /  ECDS 410 21 8,610
Civil Registration Deaths SCC (one off) latest available 410 1 410
HES-DEATHS bridging file 410 1 410
    total (ex VAT) 35,620

*Years run from 1 April to 31 March.

Scenario 2 - New application for a 3 year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA), from a non-commercial organisation. No plans to retain the data beyond the end of the DSA (specific data sets)

Application type: New application for a 3 year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA), from a non-commercial organisation. No plans to retain the data beyond the end of the DSA.

Dissemination: One-off extract of data to be supplied.    

Datasets: Data requested from period 2017/18, 2018/2019, 2019/2020. Products requested for this period:

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care (APC)

Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) linked to HES

Service: Customer to define characteristics of data required to be linked from specific NHS England datasets. Therefore, no initial tracing pack required. NHS England to link MSDS data to HES.

Costs:

Item cost (£) Amount Total (£)
Application type New 1,320 1 1,320
Annual review (3 year DSA) 320 2 640
Dissemination One extract 1,190 1 1,190
Service HES:MSDS bridging file 410 1 410
Data sets HES APC 2017/18 – 2019/20 410 3 1,230
HES MSDS 2017/18 – 2019/20 410 3 1,230
    Total (exc VAT) 6,020
Scenario 3 - New application for a 3-year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA). Plans to renew after 3 years and to continue with no fixed end date

Application type: New application for a 3-year Data Sharing Agreement (DSA). Plans to renew after 3 years and to continue with no fixed end date (subject to ongoing approval from NHS England to receive and process data and subject to further costs).    

Dissemination: Quarterly extract to be provided by NHS England over the 3-year period. No historical data is needed.  

Service: Customer to submit a single cohort of individuals for linkage to various datasets held by NHS England. NHS England to perform initial cohort trace.

Datasets: Quarterly updates to be disseminated over 3 years.

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care (APC)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Out Patient (OP)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Critical Care (CC)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Accident and Emergency (A&E) / Emergency Care Dataset (ECDS)

Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) linked to HES

Diagnostic Imaging Data Set (DIDS) linked to HES

Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) linked to HES

Civil Registration Deaths Secondary Care Cut linked to HES

Cost

Item cost (£) Amount Total (£)
Application type New 1,320 1 1,320
Annual review (3 year DSA) 320 2 640
Dissemination 4 extracts per year 1,190 12 14,280
Service Initial tracing pack 540 1 540
Bespoke data linkage HES 2,640 12 31,680
Bespoke data linkage (MHSDS) 2,640 12 31,680

Bespoke data linkage (DIDS)

 2,640 12 31,680

Bespoke data linkage (PROMS)

 2,640 12 31,680
Bespoke data linkage (Deaths) 2,640 12 31,680
Data sets HES APC 540 12 6,480
HES CC 540 12 6,480
HES A&E/ ECDS 540 12 6,480
HES OP 540 12 6,480
MHSDS 540 12 6,480
DIDS 540 12 6,480
PROMS (linkable to HES) 540 12 6,480
Deaths 540 12 6,480
HES-DIDS bridging file 540 12 6,480
HES-DEATHS bridging file 540 12 6,480
HES-MHMDS bridging file 540 12 6,480
    Total (Exc VAT) 246,460

Last edited: 10 June 2025 9:37 am