Part of Birth Notification Application guide for child health
Searching and allocation advice
This is part 6 of the Birth Notification Application (BNA) guide for child health.
Summary
This is part 6 of the Birth Notification Application (BNA) guide for child health.
The NHS Care Records Service (CRS) maintains a master index of patient records for the NHS in England, known as the Personal Demographic Service (PDS). It includes records for:
- patients from England, Wales and the Isle of Man who are registered for general medical services through their GP
- patients who are not currently registered for general medical services, but have been in the past
- new births (including still births) registered through the NHS Numbers for Babies service since 2002
- patients that received treatment in an NHS setting, but who are not registered with a GP
There are 3 opportunities to add a new patient to the PDS:
- At birth.
- When registering with a GP practice at the point that they first use the NHS.
- At an increasing number of secondary care organisations.
Adding a new record to the PDS is also known as ‘Allocating an NHS Number’. A record will be added to the PDS and an NHS Number will be issued to a patient irrespective of their entitlement to care.
The proportion of people without a record on the PDS and a corresponding NHS Number is small, and is generally limited to people who have had no previous contact with the NHS. Inability to find a patient record on the PDS to determine their NHS Number is far more likely to be because the patient has not been correctly identified rather than because the patient does not have a record.
Most patients will already have a record on the PDS along with an NHS Number, even if they have not been registered with a GP for some time.
Data quality responsibility
In accordance with the Data Protection Act it is an organisation’s responsibility to ensure that personal data is accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
Regular tracing against the PDS, ensuring that the mother’s NHS Number is on all referrals, and working with other organisations (such as general practices) to obtain correct information will help to maintain data quality.
Has the patient had previous NHS contact?
If the patient has had previous contact with the NHS in England, Wales or the Isle of Man then it's most likely they will already have a record on the NHS Spine. If the patient has recently registered with a GP for the first time (a foreign student for example) as a 'first acceptance', then it's possible an NHS number is in the process of being allocated within primary care.
Searching tips
Names
| Check spellings for both given and family names |
Given Names: Hafsa, Hafsah or Hafza Family Names: Connor or Conner |
| Check formal and familiar names |
Jill or Gillian |
| Known by their second forename | They may have been recorded on the system incorrectly. For example, ‘Susan Mary Smith’ could have been recorded as ‘Mary Susan Smith’. |
| Forename surname transposed | A name of ‘Abigail Jayne’ may have their forename and surname recorded incorrectly as ‘Jayne Abigail’ |
| Is the name easy to misspell? | Margeret (Margaret) |
| Has gender been assumed based on the name? | Alex? Sam? |
| Double-barrelled names | Replace hyphens with SPACEs and vice versa |
| Use Wildcards |
Use Wildcards to search for long names or names that may have different spellings. Jan* to search for ‘Janette’ or ‘Janet’, for example. |
Dates of birth
| Date of birth may have been recorded in an American format | For example, if for 2 November 2006, 11/02/2006 was entered instead of 02/11/2006, the displayed value would be 11 February 2006. |
| Equally, it is possible that the date of birth could have been transposed | Such as 12 June 2006 instead of 21 June 2006. |
Last edited: 30 January 2019 1:49 pm