§ Lord Marlesfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why there are 66 million National Health Service numbers used for the National Health Service in England when the population of England and Wales is 53,137,000; whether all the numbers relate to living persons; and what arrangements exist for the notification to the National Health Service Central Register of the death of United Kingdom citizens. [HL1731]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathThere are just over 55 million current numbers on the NHS Central Register. In addition, there are 6 million records relating to deceased patients, nearly 2 million relating to patients who have moved from England and Wales (eg to Scotland, Northern Ireland or abroad) and 3 million numbers which have been cancelled.
NHS numbers are never re-issued. If it is discovered that a duplicate number has been issued, that number is cancelled.
The process for informing the NHS Central Register of patient deaths is as follows:
- 1. Informant presents the medical certificate of cause of death at the Registrar of Births and Deaths and officially registers the death.
- 2. The registrar system passes details of the death to the Office of National Statistics database (at Titchfield) where the death is recorded on their database.
- 3. The Titchfield database transmits details of the deaths on a weekly basis to the NHSCR.
- 4. The NHSCR matches these persons with patients on the NHSCR database and flags them as "dead".
- 5. The NHSCR forwards a "deduction" notification to the patient's HA to request removal of the patient from the GP's list.
During the period November 2000 to October 2001, 530,000 death notifications were received in this way.
Additionally, the NHSCR receives death notifications from the HAs directly, when the GP deducts their patient with a reason of "death".
§ Lord Marlesfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
When National Health Service numbers were first introduced; whether at that time the numbers used were the national identity card numbers; whether those who used their national identity card numbers were subsequently issued with new National Health Service numbers; and, if so, when the change of numbers was made. [HL1732]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathWhen the National Health Service (NHS) began in 1948, national148WA registration numbers were used to ensure that each patient's medical record had a unique identifier. National registration stopped with the end of rationing in 1952, but the register continued as the National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR) for England and Wales.
At the point of creation of the NHSCR (1952), national ID card numbers (national registration numbers) were issued as NHS numbers.
New additions to the NHSCR were allocated an NHS number from 1952 onwards. Those with existing national ID cards retained that number.
The computerised National Health Service Central Register, CHRIS (Central Health Record Information System), was created in 1991 by the amalgamation of all health authority (HA) live patient registers which held details of all patients who were registered with NHS GPs in England and Wales at that time. It has been continually updated since then with additions and exits from that baseline.
The new (10-digit) NHS numbers were created in January 1996 by the NHSCR for all entries on CHRIS (including dead persons). They were initially rolled out to health authorities (HAs) for all patients registered with them. HAs then rolled the NHS number out to the respective GP.