NHS England (NHSE)

Supplier information 

NHS England provides national leadership for the NHS in England. They promote high quality health and care for all, and support NHS organisations to work in partnership to deliver better outcomes for our patients and communities, at the best possible value for taxpayers and to continuously improve the NHS. NHSE are the main suppliers of health data to the ONS.

Legal basis for sharing data

The legal basis for sharing these data is Section 45a/c of the Statistics and Registration Service Act (SRSA) 2007 as amended by the Digital Economy Act 2017.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has served a legal notice on NHS Digital requiring that the data are shared with us for the following datasets:

• Birth notifications
• Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)
• Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS)

This is on the basis that they are necessary to produce official statistics, as assessed against the criteria in the Code of Practice for Statistics, which underpins these data sharing powers.

Ethical scrutiny

ONS statisticians complete an ethical assessment of all proposed uses of a data source before work begins, and before they are given permission to access the data by the ONS Information Asset Owners (IAO). IAOs are senior ONS officials who are responsible for data sources, including protecting confidentiality and ensuring appropriate use.

For some new uses, notably where there may be more challenging ethical concerns, ONS statisticians will seek advice and ethical approval from the National Statistician’s Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC). Committee members have relevant expertise, provide scrutiny and challenge, and crucially, are independent.

Ethical scrutiny often involves exploring the balance between any data protection risks and the public good that could come from the new work. Most importantly, this scrutiny helps the ONS to ensure that we consider carefully whether we should produce a new statistic or not.

Minutes are published so the committee's views and approvals are transparent and available for the public to see. More information on the ethics self-assessment tool used by ONS researchers, and the NSDEC, can be found on the UK Statistics Authority's website.

Links to relevant NSDEC minutes are included for each dataset.

Data protection

Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) are completed for all uses of data where there are inherent risks for processing personal data, for example, when processing large volumes of personal data or when processing personal data of a sensitive nature. The DPIA ensures appropriate controls are in place to minimise risks and to provide assurance around the safety of the data.

Access to data held within the ONS Data Access Platform (DAP) is only granted to security-cleared ONS researchers on a case-by-case basis. This is done through a request process, which provides a business justification, authorised by the ONS IAO with advice from the Security and Information Management team.

Access is given via a “project space”, which includes only the data required to carry out the analysis that has been approved, and only to the users who require access to those data. Users are not permitted to access direct identifiers (such as name, address, date of birth, or sex) for the purposes of analysis. Access to identifiers is limited to a smaller number of staff who are specially trained and only for the purposes of data linkage. These staff are not involved in analysis or statistical production so there is a separation of duties between data linkers and data analysts.

Hospital Episode Statistics is a database containing details of all admissions, A&E attendances, and outpatient appointments at NHS hospitals in England. The data are collected during a patient's time at hospital. It includes subsets on outpatients, admitted patient care, and critical care.

Its main purpose is to collect information that enables hospitals to be paid for the care they provide. It also has secondary uses, such as healthcare planning and research.

Uses

HES data are used for a range of statistical purposes.

To enable the Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) Administrative Data Census Project

This includes placing administrative data at the core of migration statistics, using "activity" and characteristics data, such as information on ethnicity and national identity. The ONS aimed to replicate the type of information collected through a census by using administrative data already held by government, supplemented by surveys.

This can then be compared with the data collected by Census 2021. This will allow the ONS to assess whether the government's ambition that "censuses after 2021 [will] be conducted using other sources of data", as described in the UK Statistics Authority's letter on census and population statistics in England and Wales, can be realised.

Additionally, the dataset contributes to improving migration statistics through the use of administrative data, as part of a cross-Government Statistical Service (GSS) programme.

To develop the Statistical Population Datasets (SPDs)

You can read more about the quality of HES data in our Administrative sources used to develop the Statistical Population Dataset for England and Wales: 2016 to 2021 article. This includes how SPDs will form part of the evidence base for the National Statistician's Recommendation in 2023 (PDF, 249KB) on the future of population, migration, and social statistics in England and Wales.

To conduct a range of statistical research and health analyses using clinical data from HES

This includes when, where, and why people have accessed hospital services (for example, diagnosis and procedures codes). These are used for a range of statistical purposes, in line with the ONS's function to produce statistics for the public good.

All use of the HES data for health analysis will be to improve the availability and quality of health statistics. Projects include:

• exploring the feasibility of producing robust projections of the future health state of the nation
• exploring the use of linked morbidity, mortality, census, benefits, and other data to produce more granular statistics on health inequalities and health state life expectancies
• exploring the completeness of death certification and patterns of comorbidities in specific population groups
• exploring the relationship between employment and health conditions, treatments and service use

To improve the ONS's Address Register

This is done through identification and/or validation of the addresses of communal establishments.

To improve estimates of the UK household expenditure on hospital services (inpatient only) and medical and paramedical services (outpatient)

This is part of the ONS national accounts framework, which provides a simple and understandable description of national production, income, consumption, accumulation, and wealth.

To enable the UK to measure its progress against the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This is done through the reporting of data or proxy indicator data.

To investigate the socio-economic factors and underlying health conditions associated with worse outcomes from contracting the COVID-19 virus

Hospital episodes linked to other health datasets allow the ONS to identify incidences where people are hospitalised but recover, filling an important gap in visibility of cases. This is part of a large-scale COVID-19 linkage project, where HES data are linked to data on deaths, demographics (census), and primary care data. The aim is to establish and assess comorbidities and risk factors associated with poor outcomes from COVID-19.

This work contributes to the UK's response to the pandemic and the wider understanding of the virus. It is used to inform a range of policy decisions taken by central government, health services, and others.

To enable further work on the ONS's annual National Statistics publication, Public Service Productivity: Healthcare

This enables continued production and improvement of the quality adjustment.

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

The relevant National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC) minutes for uses of this dataset are:

• the NSDEC minutes for May 2019
• the NSDEC minutes for April to June 2020
• the NSDEC minutes for February 2021
• the NSDEC minutes for September 2021
• the NSDEC minutes for August 2023

Data minimisation

The ONS initially acquired a small number of years of diagnosis information to confirm that quality statistics in the public interest could be produced. Once these assurances were in place, following successful feasibility work, additional years were requested.

Additional options to minimise this information within any given year, such as filtering by diagnosis code or taking random samples, have been considered. However, we believe this would jeopardise the statistical quality of the analysis that can be produced, and therefore the public good that can be gained from those uses.

Only the HES variables needed for statistical production are shared with the ONS. The ONS worked with NHS England data experts to determine these.

Data protection

The data shared with the ONS under this agreement will not be disseminated or shared further, except as disclosure-controlled aggregate statistics. This is in line with the HES Analysis Guide, published on the NHS Digital website.

Examples of impact

Our work on the differences in COVID-19 mortality rates for different ethnicities was the first of its kind during the pandemic. The statistics contributed to the evidence being considered by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE), which advised the government and contributed to decision making on the response to the pandemic.

The census and the statistics produced from the data collected have a direct impact on a range of policy- and decision-making. Our work on developing administrative census research outputs will ultimately inform the future of the census, and health datasets will play a crucial role in any transformed population and migration statistics system.

Further information

Find out more information about the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) dataset on the NHS website.

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national dataset for urgent and emergency care for England. It replaced the Accident and Emergency portion of Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) in April 2020. This monthly supply of data covers April 2019 onwards.

Uses

The ECDS is used for the purposes outlined in Section 6: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). The ECDS is also used to produce crime statistics (including knife and drug-related crime), through analysing hospital attendances. There has been recognition, both nationally and internationally, of the benefit of the use of data collected by emergency departments in helping to prevent violence and injury.

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

The relevant National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC) minutes for uses of this dataset are

• the NSDEC minutes for February 2021

• the NSDEC minutes for August 2023

Data minimisation

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) initially acquired a small number of years of diagnosis information. This was to confirm quality statistics could be produced that would be in the public interest.

Once these assurances were in place, following successful analysis, additional years were requested. Analytical work also highlighted the need to request additional codes, to ensure a complete picture of conditions through clinical events.

Additional options to minimise this information within any given year, such as filtering by diagnosis code or taking random samples, have been considered. However, it was felt that this would jeopardise the statistical quality of the analysis that could be produced, and therefore the public good that can be gained from those uses.

Only the HES variables that are needed for statistical production are shared with the ONS. The ONS worked with NHS England data experts to determine these.

Additional information about data protection

The data shared with the ONS under this agreement will not be disseminated or shared further, except as summary statistics where disclosure controls (as explained in our disclosure controls guidance) have been applied to ensure no individual can be identified, in line with the HES Analysis Guide, published on the NHS Digital website.

Examples of impact

Examples of impact can be found in Section 2: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).

Further information

Find out more information about the ECDS on the NHS website.

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

These are primary care data on approximately 55 million patients registered at GPs in England. These feature information on:

• patient demographics
• diagnoses and findings
• medications and other prescribed items
• investigations, tests, and results
• treatments and outcomes
• vaccinations and immunisations

Data use is for coronavirus (COVID-19) and winter pressure statistics only, in line with the basis on which the data were originally collected by NHS England from GPs.

Uses

GDPPR data are only used for the purpose of supporting the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is through the provision of rapid-response official statistics to inform government officials and their scientific advisors to make the best possible decisions relating to the pandemic.

The broad scope of the statistics produced can be defined as follows.

Statistics on the short, medium, and long-term impacts of having had COVID-19, treatment for COVID-19, or a COVID-19 vaccine

This includes statistics on the direct impact of COVID-19 infection on mortality (acute infection) and morbidity (COVID-19 sequalae and so called long COVID). It also includes how these are mediated by factors such as personal characteristics (for example, ethnicity, age, or sex), vaccination status, and pre-existing conditions. These data have also been used to independently validate the QCOVID® algorithm, developed by the University of Oxford.

Statistics on the coronavirus pandemic and the associated social, economic, and environmental impact on health and well-being

This includes statistics on the indirect impact of COVID-19 on mortality (for example, non-COVID-19 excess mortality), morbidity (such as mental health), and economic and social well-being including the relationship between employment and health conditions, treatments and service use.

Supporting numerical analysis on the quality of the underlying data, and statistics produced in the two broad areas mentioned

This means that the data can be used appropriately by others and the statistics can be interpreted appropriately.

This dataset provides historical information about pre-existing conditions relevant to negative outcomes from COVID-19. It also includes diagnoses made during the pandemic relevant to indirect impacts, such as mental health diagnoses.

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

For new specific uses of these data, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will take the following actions.

Submit a briefing document to NHS England

This document is shared with NHS England's Profession Advisory Group (PAG) and Independent Group Advising (NHS England) on Release of Data (IGARD). It specifies:

• new uses
• the expected outputs, dissemination plans, and expected benefits
• what datasets and what subsets thereof will be used
• any non-NHS England datasets with which the data will be linked

NHS England approval will be subject to taking advice from the IGARD and the PAG.

Ensure all new uses are scrutinised

All new uses of the data are scrutinised by the UK Statistics Authority Centre for Applied Data Ethics, and where appropriate, the full National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee. Minutes from NSDEC meetings are published here.

Not use the data before approval is granted

The ONS will not use the data for the proposed purpose until approval is confirmed in writing by NHS England. This is subject to the conditions previously given in this section being met.

Data minimisation

The ONS developed a specification of the variables to receive in collaboration with NHS England data experts, and through remote secure access to the data on NHS England systems. Since the first supply, the specification has been updated once to include codes relating to long COVID and vaccinations.

The data-sharing agreement provides for the ONS to receive updated data as frequently as every quarter. However, in practice it has been less frequent and has been done on an ad hoc basis to meet statistical needs and the needs of officials requiring those statistics.

Additional information about data protection

As noted in “Additional information about ethical scrutiny”, all uses are subject to approval by the NHS England Profession Advisory Group, which is made up of members of the British Medical Association and Royal College of GPs.

Examples of impact

The data have been used to answer emerging questions related to COVID-19, with GDPPR data providing an up-to-date and more complete history of conditions, comorbidities, and risk factors. This offers insight into the underlying health of the population, as well as diagnoses of post-COVID syndrome (long COVID) as an outcome following infection.

A publication on winter pressures resulting from the pandemic was produced using these data following a query by the Chief Medical Officer. This was then used as additional evidence to help inform decision making by officials at the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Further information

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

Find out more about the GPES data for pandemic planning and research (COVID-19) on the NHS website.

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies dataset collects national data on IAPT services from providers. A variety of health and well-being data are collected, including:

• patient health questionnaires
• generalised anxiety disorder assessment questionnaires
• phobia screening questions
• disorder-specific measures
• work and social adjustment scales
• employment questions
• waiting times

Uses

IAPT data are used for a range of statistical purposes.

To enable the Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) Administrative Data Census Project

This places administrative data at the core of migration statistics, using "activity" and characteristics data.

The ONS aims to replicate the type of information collected through a census by using administrative data already held by government, supplemented by surveys. This can then be compared with the data collected by Census 2021. This will allow the ONS to assess whether the government's ambition that "censuses after 2021 [should] be conducted using other sources of data", as described in the UK Statistics Authority's letter on census and population statistics in England and Wales, can be realised.

Additionally, the dataset contributes to improving migration statistics through the use of administrative data, as part of a cross-Government Statistical Service (GSS) programme.

Ethnicity information from the IAPT dataset is used to improve coverage of HES and the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS). It is also used to explore the potential for producing population statistics by ethnic group for England and Wales, as described in our Developing admin-based ethnicity statistics for England and Wales: 2020 article, down to local levels from administrative data. This builds upon our previously published work described in our Developing admin-based ethnicity statistics for England: 2016 article.

To conduct a range of statistical research and health analyses

This includes statistical research to inform primary mental health service policy making, a project that focuses on common mental health disorders (CMDs) such as anxiety and depression. Using a phased approach, the ONS will look first at the mortality risk of people with CMDs, and co-morbidities between mental and physical health problems, and investigate inequalities around mental health. The second phase involves investigating income and employment transitions for patients who have been through mental health treatment.

Other projects include:

• exploring the feasibility of producing robust projections of the future health state of the nation
• exploring the use of linked morbidity, mortality, census, benefits, and other data to produce more granular statistics on health inequalities and health state life expectancies
• analysis of mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to analysis using General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (GDPPR) data by ensuring greater visibility of CMDs
• exploring mental health outcomes of people in specific groups including university students and veterans, and by disability status and by sexual orientation
• exploring the relationship between employment and health conditions, treatments and service use

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

The relevant National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC) minutes for uses of this dataset are the NSDEC minutes for July 2018, NSDEC minutes for March 2022 and the NSDEC minutes for August 2023.

Data minimisation

The ONS initially acquired data relating only to the years 2012 to 2018. This was to enable feasibility work to determine whether quality statistics could be produced that would be in the public interest. Once these assurances were in place, following successful analysis, additional years were requested.

Additional options to minimise this information within any given year, such as filtering by diagnosis code or taking random samples, have been considered. However, we believe this would jeopardise the statistical quality of the analysis that can be produced, and therefore the public good that can be gained from those uses.

Data protection

The data shared with the ONS under this agreement will not be disseminated or shared further, except as disclosure-controlled aggregate statistics and/or analysis as aggregated data with small numbers suppressed. This is in line with the HES Analysis Guide, published on the NHS Digital website.

The birth notifications dataset contains information about mothers and babies for all births notified in England and Wales. The midwifery staff record a live or still birth into the NHS Personal Demographics Service (PDS) either directly or via a Birth Notification Application (BNA). These data from the birth notification record are used by NHS England (NHSE) to create an NHS number and record for the baby.

Uses

NHSE has disseminated birth notifications data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) since 2005, and these data are used for a wide range of statistical purposes.

Analysis of births, maternities, infant mortality, and child health outcomes

The primary statistical purpose for these data is the analysis of births, maternities, infant mortality, and child health outcomes. The data are used to overcome limitations of the birth registrations data from the General Register Office, which is the primary data source for these statistics. The limitations that the data overcome include:

• a time lag
• lack of important variables such as ethnicity
• missing values

Linking these datasets enables the ONS to produce more comprehensive and accurate statistics. Additionally, birth notifications data are linked to:

• birth registration, deaths, and census data to identify more detailed characteristics of the household and mother
• deaths, to identify bereaved children, and to other NHS digital data, to identify subsequent inequalities and outcomes
• other ONS and NHS digital data, such as Hospital Episode Statistics, to better determine underlying cause of death, and understand inequalities, risk factors, variation in child outcomes and the relationship between employment and health conditions, treatments and service use.

To develop and improve data linkage methodology

To support development and improvements of population and migration statistics

This includes:

• validation of census data
• estimation and quality assurance of population characteristics
• contributing to the recommendation on future censuses
• development of official statistics

Read more about the administrative data used in the census in our Administrative data used in Census 2021, England and Wales methodology.

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

The relevant National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC) minutes for uses of this dataset are the NSDEC minutes for March 2022 and the NSDEC minutes for August 2023.

Data minimisation

The complete birth notifications dataset is required, rather than just a sample, because the birth registrations data, which are the primary source for the ONS's birth statistics, are designed to be a census of all births. This means the statistics are more accurate than statistics based on surveys that suffer from sampling error.

If the variables that are appended to the birth registrations data from the birth notifications were only a sample, this would reduce the accuracy of some of the birth statistics, limiting their use and impact. In addition, the difference in accuracy between statistics based on different variables within the same statistical release would be confusing for users. Some variables that are on the birth registrations have their value overwritten with the equivalent value from the birth notifications data. In this case, only having a sample of birth notifications data, or certain geographic regions, would potentially introduce bias.

Additional information about data protection

The birth notifications dataset is linked to the birth registrations dataset. Variables from the birth notifications data are used to either enhance or validate the birth registrations data.

Once complete, all additional birth notifications data that are not needed to produce statistics, notably the identifiers, are removed before any more ONS staff can access the data. This linked de-identified dataset is transferred to another secure server where health researchers can produce the statistics.

No attempt is made to re-identify individuals. The ONS is only interested in producing aggregate statistics for the public good.

Examples of impact

Local authorities and other government departments use birth statistics for planning and resource allocation. Other users include:

• academics
• demographers
• health researchers
• charities
• Eurostat
• the United Nations

The media also reports on trends and statistics.

ONS birth data are also used as a component of our population statistics. These are used throughout government for the planning and provision of funding and services.

Further information

Read about the Birth Notification Service on the NHS website.

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

Find out more about birth statistics in our User guide to birth statistics.

The Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) is a patient-level dataset that collects information on each stage of care for women as they go through pregnancy.

Uses

The Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) health researchers use information about who has accessed maternity services as well as when, where, and why (for example, diagnosis codes and health behaviours). This is done for a range of statistical purposes in line with the ONS's function to produce statistics for the public good.

All uses of the MSDS data for health and social care analysis will improve the availability and quality of statistics. Some broad examples of the uses are:

• understanding health, morbidity, and mortality
• understanding health inequalities, outcomes, and care pathways
• understanding the effect of health conditions on socio-economic outcomes and life chances
• understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes
• investigating the quality of characteristics data, such as ethnicity data, across different data sources
• understanding the short, medium, and long-term impacts of having had COVID-19, treatment for COVID-19, or a COVID-19 vaccine
• understanding the coronavirus pandemic and its associated social, economic, and environmental impacts on health and well-being

The MSDS is also used to aid the production of administrative-based ethnicity statistics for 2021 and to compare with Census 2021. The data will also assist the development of a method for the ONS to produce robust ethnicity estimates in non-census years.

Additional information about ethical scrutiny

The relevant National Statistician's Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC) minutes for uses of this dataset are the NSDEC minutes for March 2022.

Data minimisation

Only fields that have been deemed necessary for the purposes outlined within the data sharing agreement have been requested.

The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures adequate power in the analysis. For example, as infant mortality is a relatively rare event, the ONS has to combine several years of data in our analysis to ensure our statistics are robust and we can make comparisons over time.

Data protection

NHS England shares identifiable MSDS data to the ONS via Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT). No MSDS data are subsequently shared beyond the ONS except for aggregated statistics that have small numbers suppressed. This is in line with the MSDS Suppression Rules published on the NHS Digital website.

Further information

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

Find out more information about the MSDS on the NHS website.

The Community Services Data Set (CSDS) contains patient-level information for people who are in contact with NHS-funded Community Health Services in England.

These activities could take place in settings such as:

• health centres
• Sure Start centres
• day care facilities
• schools or community centres
• mobile facilities
• a patient's own home

As a secondary-uses dataset, the CSDS re-uses clinical and operational data for purposes other than direct patient care. The dataset provides national, comparable, standardised data about the services being delivered.

Uses

The Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) health researchers use this dataset for a range of statistical purposes, in line with our mission to provide statistics for the public good. This includes information about who has accessed community services, as well as when, where, and why (for example, through diagnosis codes).

All use of the CSDS data for health and social care analysis will be to improve the availability and quality of statistics. Some examples of the proposed uses include:

• understanding health, morbidity, and mortality
• understanding health inequalities, outcomes, and care pathways
• understanding the effect of health conditions on educational and socio-economic outcomes and life chances
• understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes
• investigating the quality of characteristics data, such as ethnicity data, across different data sources and producing administrative-based ethnicity estimates
• understanding the short, medium, and long-term impacts of having had coronavirus (COVID-19), treatment for COVID-19, or a COVID-19 vaccine
• understanding the coronavirus pandemic and its associated social, economic, and environmental impacts on health and well-being

Data minimisation

Only fields that have been deemed necessary for the purposes outlined within the data sharing agreement have been requested.

Further information

Find out more information about the CSDS on the NHS website.

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.

The Personal Demographic Service is the national electronic database of NHS patient demographic details and the central source of patient demographic information used within the NHS. The data extract includes NHS number, date of birth, and postcode.

Uses

The PDS data are used to develop census and population statistics. Our Census and Data Collection Transformation programme (CDCTP) conducts research into the use of administrative data in producing population statistics. This is to assess whether the government's ambition of a census using other sources of data, to produce accurate and more timely population statistics, can be realised. You can read our report about the administrative data used in Census 2021 in England and Wales. 

PDS data have been used to develop the Statistical Population Datasets (SPDs). Read more about the quality of PDS data in our Administrative sources used to develop the Statistical Population Dataset for England and Wales: 2016 to 2021 article. This includes how SPDs will form part of the evidence base for the National Statistician's Recommendation in 2023 (PDF, 248KB) on the future of population, migration, and social statistics in England and Wales.

PDS data are also used to produce mid-year population estimates, including:

• to produce internal and international migration estimates
• to facilitate linkage of NHS and non-NHS data
• provide information on main languages
• to carry out health and mortality analysis to produce statistics on the health of the nation

The population estimates and projections are used extensively throughout government. In particular, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and its agencies use this information for the planning and provision of health and social care services and the distribution of funds.

The research outputs are also used by academics, local authorities, and other statistical institutions for efficient resource allocation and ongoing research into administrative data use.

PDS data have also been used to support the linkage of data required to inform statistical analysis of factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, the use of NHS numbers enabled datasets to be linked together, where the quality or completeness of personal identifiers meant it would not have been possible to do so otherwise.

Data minimisation

Business areas in the ONS who wish to use the data must demonstrate that their request is proportionate and that their goals cannot be achieved without the data. Demographic data (such as name, address, and date of birth) are essential for these projects to ensure that coverage issues (as explained in guidance on administrative data on the Office for Statistics Regulation website) within the individual data sources are dealt with appropriately. All requests for data are scrutinised to ensure that the principle of data minimisation is applied, and only data required for the purposes set out will be requested and processed.

Examples of impact

The census and the statistics produced from the data collected have a direct impact on a range of policy- and decision-making. Our work on developing administrative census research outputs will ultimately inform the future of the census, and health datasets will play a crucial role in any transformed population and migration statistics system.

Mid-year population estimates are the official source of population sizes in between censuses, covering populations of local authorities, counties, regions, and countries of the UK by age and sex. The mid-year population estimates are essential building blocks for a wide range of National Statistics. These figures also contribute to international measures of the population, such as those produced by the European Union and United Nations.

Further information

Find out more information about the PDS dataset on the NHS website.

Read about our Mid-year population estimates quality and methodology information (QMI).

There is more information about NHSE datasets in the NHS Data Uses Registers.