Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of routinely (a) recording and (b) matching new fathers’ health records to those of their children.

The Department has not carried out a recent assessment of the merits of routinely recording and matching new fathers’ health records to those of their children.

The Personal Demographics Service (PDS) can record many relationships, including 'mother', 'father' and 'parent'. If a baby is born in England, then the midwife will create a PDS record and grant them a National Health Service number. They will link the birth mother's record to the child, and if the local maternity system supports it, they could also add the second parent at that time.