Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer on by Baroness Merron on 10 September (HL9969), whether the father’s name, NHS number, date of birth and current address will be routinely added to child NHS records so that this information is accessible to medical practitioners for the purposes of child safeguarding and well-being.

The national Patient Demographic Service (PDS) holds records of demographic information for each person with a National Health Service number. When a baby’s PDS record is created at birth, the mother’s details are included.

NHS England is currently working to integrate additional data from the General Register Office, which will also add fathers and second parents to a child’s record, after the child has been registered. A health professional will then be able to look up the NHS number of any parent on a child’s record, to access more details about the parent. This work is expected to start delivering in December 2025.

The aim is to improve the existing infrastructure to facilitate better coordination between existing records. This will support health professionals to offer more informed, joined-up care.

NHS England is working on making it easier for parents to digitally manage their children's health. Improvements which will roll out through 2026 include proxy access to book appointments, order prescriptions, and access medical records.