NHS Digital

NHS Digital

NHS Digital’s headquarters in Leeds.
Non-departmental public body overview
Formed 1 April 2013 (2013-04-01)
Preceding agencies
Jurisdiction England
Headquarters Leeds
Motto Information and technology for better health and care
Employees 6000
Non-departmental public body executives
Parent department Department of Health
Website digital.nhs.uk

NHS Digital is the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which is the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, particularly those involved with the National Health Service (England).

It provides digital services for the NHS and social care, including the management of large health informatics programmes.[1] They deliver national systems through in-house teams, and by contracting private suppliers. These services include managing patient data including the Spine, which allows the secure sharing of information between different parts of the NHS, and forms the basis of the Electronic Prescription Service, Summary Care Record. and Electronic Referral Service.[2]

NHS Digital is also the national collator of information about health and social care, and publishes over 260 statistical publications each year, including Official Statistics and National Statistics.[3] It also runs the NHS.UK (formerly NHS Choices) website, which is the national website for the NHS in England.

The organisation is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health,[4] and was re-branded as NHS Digital on 1 August 2016.

NHS Digital has taken on the roles of a number of predecessor bodies including the NHS Information Centre, NHS Connecting for Health, and parts of NHS Direct. The organisation produces more than 260 official and national statistical publications. This includes national comparative data for secondary uses, developed from the long-running Hospital Episode Statistics which can help local decision makers to improve the quality and efficiency of frontline care.

History

The organisation was created as a special health authority on 1 April 2005 by a merger of parts of the Department of Health, parts of the NHS Information Authority, and the Prescribing Support Unit.

Following the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the HSCIC changed from a special health authority to an executive non-departmental public body (ENDPB) on 1 April 2013. Effective at this time, HSCIC took over parts of the troubled NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) from the agency NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) which ceased to exist.[5] It also runs the Health Survey for England (HSE).

On 20 April 2016, it was announced that HSCIC would be rebranding, changing its name to NHS Digital in July 2016.[6][1]

Business areas

Handling patient data

NHS Digital runs the Spine service for the NHS, which is a central, secure system for patient data in England.[2] This enables a number of services for patients, including:

  • the Electronic Prescription Service, which sends prescriptions digitally from GP surgeries and other NHS providers to pharmacies, without needing a printed prescription[7]
  • the Summary Care Record which allows authorised NHS staff (such as hospital or ambulance staff) to see a summary of important information about a patient, to help give the best care.[8]
  • the e-referral service which manages the booking of first time appointments with hospitals and specialists[9]
  • the Child Protection - Information Sharing system, which helps ensure that any child protection concerns are known by the NHS when they are treated[10]

As the HSCIC, the organisation ran the care.data programme, which was cancelled in 2016.

NHS Digital collects the national 'Hospital Episode Statistics', which is a record of every 'episode' of admitted patient care (counted by completing care with a consultant, meaning that more than one episode can be associated with a single stay in hospital[11]) delivered by the NHS in England, including those done under contract by private providers. This involves the tracking of around 16 million 'episodes' of care every year.[12] This information is used for a range of statistical analysis, as well as for determining payments to providers.

Statistics and data

NHS Digital compiles national data about the NHS and social care, with over 260 publications every year.[1] In addition, they provide data analysis, and access to data and clinical indicators.

Public facing services

NHS.UK (formerly NHS Choices) is the public website for the NHS England, and is run by a team at NHS Digital.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "HSCIC changing its name to NHS Digital". Department of Health.
  2. 1 2 "Spine". NHS Digital.
  3. ↑ "List of National Statistics". UK Statistics Authority.
  4. ↑ Annual Report 2016/17. NHS Digital.
  5. ↑ "The Health and Social Care Information Centre Annual Report and Accounts 2011/12" (PDF). Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  6. ↑ Santry, Charlotte (20 April 2016). "HSCIC renamed NHS Digital and new chair hired". Health Service Journal.
  7. ↑ "Electronic Prescription Service". NHS Digital.
  8. ↑ "Summary Care Records". NHS Digital.
  9. ↑ "NHS e-referral Service". NHS Digital.
  10. ↑ "Child Protection - Information Sharing". NHS Digital.
  11. ↑ "Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)". National Clinical Analysis and Specialised Applications Team. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  12. ↑ "Hospital Episode Statistics". Health and Social Care Information Centre. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
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