What happens if there are discrepancies with the NHS numbers (wrong/old NHS numbers)?

NIR Governance & Clinical Safety FAQs
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1

  • For patient matching, we recommend the use of PDS ā€“ most organisations can use PDS to query patient demographics prior to querying NIR.

  • NIR will return errors for records not found or bad parameters. If a mismatch is detected (e.g. NHS number discrepancy between metadata and payload), the NIR gateway rejects the response with a defined error (IDENTIFIER_MISMATCH). Those errors will then be presented to the user as implemented by the supplier. https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-imaging-registry/functional-capabilities If you are concerned of inaccuracies of a retrieved image, the data controller (provider) of that image should be notified and follow your local standard operating procedures for reporting mismatches.

2

All organisations should be using PDS to find and maintain NHS Numbers as NHS Number is required to communicate about patients in the NHS.

PDS Records sometimes get new numbers that supersede an old record. Usually, this is a result of merging duplicate records that have been created in error. Sometimes it will be to resolve confusions, where one record has been used for two different people.

When a consumer calls PDS FHIR API (or HL7v3 which is deprecated) with an superseded NHS Number, the record returned will have the new, latest NHS Number for that person. The system is expected to deal with that appropriately and maintain the latest NHS Number in their system

Systems should be calling PDS before any actions, to make sure they have the latest information for that patient (e.g. death status as well)

The other option is the NHS number change event - NHS England Digital on the MNS platform, where systems can be notified about a change of NHS Number when it happens, rather than when the record is next accessed.

Any national system of record should be ensuring that the NHS Number for all their data is up to date, so the event model is most appropriate in this case. Holding records keyed on an old NHS Number can mean consumers who ask for a record with the latest NHS Number for the patient (as they should) may not receive the record they wanted.