Part of National Care Records Service (NCRS) user guidance
Birth Notification Process
Babies born in England, Wales and the Isle of Man are issued with a unique NHS Number as soon as possible after birth. This goes on to form their lifelong electronic patient record. The NHS Number helps healthcare staff and service providers to identify and match patients to their health records.
The Birth Notification Process is accessed through the National Care Records Service (NCRS).
To access the functionality, you will need a role with the appropriate activity codes on your smartcard for your particular organisation. See example role below. Your Registration Authority will support you in ensuring you have the correct access.
Role: R8016 (midwife)
Activity codes:
- B0264 - Access NCRS (perform patient trace)
- B1610 - Allocate NHS Number
Searching for the mother
Search for the mother’s record by using one of search options in NCRS;
Search by
- NHS Number
- basic search
- advanced search
- or postcode search
Entering the birth notification details
Select the Create a birth notification under the Patient tab. Any appropriate information from the mother’s details and from your smartcard are defaulted into the birth notification fields. This information may be amended if it is appropriate to do so.
Enter the details of the birth into the birth notification fields, starting with the delivery place details:
- delivery place type
- place of birth
- associated child health unit (also known as Partner Child Health Unit)
On the next page, enter the baby’s birth details. All fields are mandatory unless noted as optional.
On the next page, enter the baby’s address and contact details. This will initially pre-populate with the mother’s address but can be edited if required.
The contact details and discharge address are optional but should be recorded where possible.
A discharge address will need an associated end date.
After you have entered all of the details you know, you should now review the information you have entered, and when ready, select the Submit button, this will validate the data entered, highlighting any missing data or errors.
Ensure that you are confident of the data that has been entered, because once the birth notification has been submitted the details cannot be amended.
If the details are successfully validated, then the birth notification is saved, and the NHS Number for the infant is displayed in a popup box.
Important business process
NCRS has functionality to allow users with the appropriate RBAC permissions to allocate an NHS number to a patient. This is a separate process to the Birth Notification Process.
Any users who attempt to allocate an NHS number on a patient under 12 months of age will be prompted with the below alert.
Last edited: 17 January 2025 3:53 pm