Hi all,
We are continuing our work on integrating the Patient Flags FHIR API for Reasonable Adjustments and are looking for some clarification on the prerequisite regarding verifying NHS numbers with the Personal Demographics Service (PDS).
Our understanding is that a patient’s NHS number must be validated through the PDS API before it can be used to request a flag via the Patient Flags API.
Our Current Architecture: Currently, our system offers a PDS lookup/verification integration as a feature for our services. If a service has this enabled, they can use it to lookup & verify a patient’s NHS number either during the initial patient registration or when updating a patient’s details. However, because it is an optional module, not all of our services use it, and patients’ NHS numbers can sometimes be entered manually without a direct PDS check.
Our Question: What exactly does “validated” entail in terms of timing? Does the NHS number simply need to have been PDS-verified at some point in time (e.g., during initial registration months ago), or does the conformance mandate that we run a fresh PDS validation/revalidation immediately prior to every Patient Flags API request?
Any advice from suppliers who have navigated this specific PDS prerequisite, or official clarification from the NHS integration team, would be hugely helpful!
Thanks in advance,
Dave Elliott
Mayden