Guardian Details for Child Referrals

Personal Demographics Service (PDS)
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1

Hi,

We’re looking for some clarification around how guardian details are handled for child referrals.

From what we understand, e-RS treats all individuals simply as a “patient” and does not distinguish between child and adult records.

We’ve been advised this may sit more with PDS, and note that the PDS FHIR API supports retrieval of related people linked to a patient record (e.g. parent, guardian, carer, next of kin).

Could anyone confirm:

  • Whether guardian (or related person) details are available via PDS for use in referral workflows?

  • Whether these details are surfaced at all via e-RS, or if a separate PDS lookup would be required?

  • Any recommended approach for handling guardian information when managing child referrals?

Thanks in advance.

2

Whilst a RelatedPerson could be added to the PDS record with a type of “Guardian”, there is no legal status associated with this and this does not confer any rights to the RelatedPerson around the subject’s record

As far as I know, any rights to view or manage a child record can only be conferred locally, or via GPs granting proxy rights (which may be surfaced in the new Validated Relationship Service Validated Relationship Service - FHIR API - NHS England Digital)