§ Lord Jenkin of Rodingasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they consider it impracticable to make mandatory the use of the National Health Service patient number as a common identifier, as recommended by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in its Report, Human Genetic databases; challenges and opportunities (4th Report, Session 2000–01 HL Paper 57). [HL2679]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathThe information strategy for the National Health ServiceInformation for Health (1998) and the more recent update Building tin' Information Core: Implementing the NHS Plan (2001) both explain the importance of the NHS number. The latter document included a number of specific targets relating to the use of the NHS number in clinical communications.
Full usage is dependent upon specific national initiatives, including the allocation of NHS numbers to babies at birth, and full provision of details through the NHS Strategic Tracing Service (NSTS). The NSTS is a managed service operated by SchlumergerSema to NHS organisations. It provides a secure database of all people born, or who have been registered with a general practitioner, in England and Wales and is the authoritative source of NHS numbers.