NHS Digital was the trading name from 2016 of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which was 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 of England. The organisation was an executive

non-departmental public body In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process o ...

of the

Department of Health and Social Care The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for government policy on health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the s ...

, until it was merged into

NHS England NHS England, formally the NHS Commissioning Board for England, is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning si ...

in 2023.

Role

NHS Digital provided digital services for the NHS and social care, including the management of large health informatics programmes. They delivered national systems through in-house teams, and by contracting private suppliers. These services included 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 A Summary Care Record (SCR) is an electronic patient record, a summary of National Health Service patient data held on a central database covering England, part of the NHS National Programme for IT. The purpose of the database is to make patient d ...

and Electronic Referral Service. NHS Digital took on the roles of a number of predecessor bodies including the NHS Information Centre,

NHS Connecting for Health The NHS Connecting for Health (CFH) agency was part of the UK Department of Health (United Kingdom), Department of Health and was formed on 1 April 2005, having replaced the former NHS Information Authority. It was part of the Department of Healt ...

, and parts of

NHS Direct NHS Direct was the health advice and information service provided by the National Health Service (NHS), established in March 1998. The nurse-led telephone information service provided residents and visitors in England with healthcare advice 24 ho ...

. It also ran " The NHS Website" (www.nhs.uk, formerly NHS Choices), the national website for the NHS in England. NHS Digital was the national collator of information about health and social care, and produced more than 260 official statistics and national statistical publications. This included national comparative data for secondary uses, developed from the long-running Hospital Episode Statistics to help local decision-makers improve the quality and efficiency of frontline care.

History

The organisation was created as a

special health authority A special health authority is a type of NHS body which provide services on behalf of the National Health Service in England. Unlike other types of trust, they operate nationally rather than serve a specific geographical area. They are a type of " ...

on 1 April 2005 by a merger of the National Programme for IT, part of the

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their o ...

, the

NHS Information Authority The NHS Information Authority (NHSIA) was part of the UK National Health Service (NHS). It was established as a NHS special health authority by an Act of Parliament in April 1999. Its aim was to deliver IT infrastructure and information soluti ...

, and the Prescribing Support Unit. Following the

Health and Social Care Act 2012 The Health and Social Care Act 2012 (c. 7) is an Act of Parliament (UK), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service (England), National Health Ser ...

, the HSCIC changed from a special health authority to an executive non-departmental public body on 1 April 2013. Effective at this time, HSCIC took over parts of the troubled

NHS National Programme for IT The NHS Connecting for Health (CFH) agency was part of the UK Department of Health and was formed on 1 April 2005, having replaced the former NHS Information Authority. It was part of the Department of Health Informatics Directorate, with the r ...

from the agency

(CfH) which ceased to exist. It also ran the

Health Survey for England The Health Survey for England (HSE) is a statistical survey which is conducted annually in order to collect information concerning health and health-related behaviour of people living in private households in England. History The HSE was set up in ...

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

NHSX NHSX was a United Kingdom Government unit from early 2019 to early 2022, with responsibility for setting national policy and developing best practice for National Health Service (NHS) technology, digital and data, including data sharing and trans ...

, created in February 2019, had oversight of digital strategy and policy in NHS England. As a budget-holder, NHSX commissioned projects from NHS Digital. On 22 November 2021, it was announced that NHS Digital would be merged with NHSX and incorporated into NHS England. The merger was completed on 1 February 2023.

Business areas

Handling patient data

NHS Digital ran the Spine service for the NHS, which is a central, secure system for patient data in England. 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. * 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. * the e-referral service which manages the booking of first time appointments with hospitals and specialists. * the Child Protection - Information Sharing system, which helps ensure that any child protection concerns are known by the NHS when they are treated. As the HSCIC, the organisation ran the

care.data care.data was a programme announced by the then Health and Social Care Information Centre in spring 2013. It aimed to extract data from GP surgeries into a central database through the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES). Members of the E ...

programme, which was cancelled in 2016. NHS Digital collected the national 'Hospital Episode Statistics' (HES), 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) 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. This information is used for a range of statistical analysis, as well as for determining payments to providers. In addition to admitted patient care, HES also provides data for outpatient and emergency care encounters. The Emergency Care Data Set has been created to replace HES A&E data and provide better data on emergency care encounters. In November 2019 it launched the National Record Locator, which spans different health economies and is intended to enable paramedics, community mental health nurses, children’s health teams and maternity services to access the records of mental health patients across England. In August 2020 it launched a pilot electronic prescription service in three hospital trusts, where hospital prescriptions were sent electronically to the patient’s community pharmacy, as during the

COVID-19 pandemic in England The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England were NHS England and Public ...

most outpatient consultations were held remotely.

Central technology team

A troubleshooting operation was established in 2018 to help

NHS trust An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...

s when major IT deployments go wrong. Eight trusts needed emergency assistance in 2018 after a deployment led to severe service disruptions. Funding of £2 million a year for the service has been allocated and expansion is expected.

Statistics and data

NHS Digital compiled national data about the NHS and social care, with over 260 publications every year. In addition, they provided data analysis, and access to data and clinical indicators.

Public-facing services

The NHS website www.nhs.uk, formerly NHS Choices, is the public website for the NHS Services in England, and was run by a team at NHS Digital, mandated by DOH with input from

Public Health England Public Health England (PHE) was an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care in England which began operating on 1 April 2013 to protect and improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. Its formation came as a ...

. In November 2022 it had been visited more than one billion times in the previous 12 months.

Leadership

Simon Bolton, formerly chief information officer at

Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is the holding company of Jaguar Land Rover, also known as JLR, and is a British multinational automobile manufacturer which produces luxury vehicles and SUVs and has its head office in Whitley, Coventry, Unite ...

and

NHS Test and Trace NHS Test and Trace was a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The programme is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harr ...

, was appointed as interim chief executive officer in June 2021. He replaced

Sarah Wilkinson Sarah Wilkinson is the former chief executive of NHS Digital, which is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care, and part of the NHS in England. Wilkinson has been named as the second most influen ...

, CEO from August 2017 until she decided to step down in March 2021.

References

External links

*
NHS.UK, the NHS website
{{Department of Health (United Kingdom) 2005 establishments in the United Kingdom Government agencies established in 2005 Department of Health and Social Care Health in Yorkshire Health informatics in the United Kingdom Defunct public bodies of the United Kingdom Organisations based in Leeds NHS special health authorities Health informatics organizations Databases in England Medical databases National Health Service (England)