The National Record Locator (NRL) enables organisations to share patient data nationwide.
Rather than storing the data itself, it is used to share pointers to the data, held in provider systems.
It acts as an index and not a data repository. Each document pointer is defined using the FHIR R4 DocumentReference standard.
Users of the service fall into the categories of:
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producers - capable of creating and managing pointers
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consumers - capable of searching and reading pointers
The service removes the need for organisations to create duplicate copies of information across systems and organisations, by enabling access to up-to-date information directly from the source.
It can be used to store and publish pointers to patient data held in health systems across England and to look up where relevant patient data is held.