Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many records of individual immigration status have been shared by NHS England with the Personal Demographics Service.

National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts must indicate on a patient’s NHS record whether they are an overseas visitor, whether an exemption from charges applies to that overseas visitor, and the date on which the latest assessment of their chargeable status took place, under regulation 3A of the charging regulations.

The Personal Demographics Service (PDS) is the national electronic database of all NHS patients, who are born in or have received NHS care in England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, or who are an overseas visitor.

It helps healthcare staff identify patients, match them to their care records, and keep their details up to date. If the person is an overseas visitor, information obtained via the PDS is used to help NHS trusts understand if a patient has an immigration status to make NHS charging decisions.

The Home Office provides data to the PDS when a new immigration record is created or approved, including the Home Office Reference Number, visa dates, and charging status.

This is used to enable an NHS Overseas Visitor Manager in an NHS trust to check when an overseas visitor accesses NHS services, when they need to confirm their charging status, and uses NHS systems linked to Home Office systems to check the relevant status. Access to this data on the PDS via NHS systems is limited to this purpose.

NHS England is directed to collect and analyse the data necessary to deliver this service under the Cost Recovery Collection, Processing and Dissemination of Overseas Visitor and UK Patient-Level Data Directions 2021, and the Health and Social Care Information Centre (Immigration Health Charge) Directions 2021.