Appendix B: NHS IDs & Data Sharing Agreements (DSA)#
Last modified: 20 May 2026
While NHS IDs are not essential for the linkage of participants’ records with their NHS England records, their inclusion in the File 1 ‘identifiers’ data (in a field called ‘NHS_NUMBER’) may improve the match rates and quality. NHS IDs should be included wherever possible.
N.B. If your NHS IDs do not originate from NHS England, e.g. they were collected at sampling or recruitment from an NHS Trust or from participants, then this section does not apply to your LPS.
UK LLC (University of Bristol as Data Controller) holds a DSA with NHS England in which it states that LPS provide their NHS IDs to UK LLC’s trusted third party (NHS DHCW) for linkage to their participants’ NHS England records. However, NHS England has stipulated that the onward sharing of NHS England supplied IDs must also be clearly stated in the DSA the LPS holds with NHS England.
We advise you not to send NHS England supplied NHS IDs in your File 1s until you have checked that your DSA permits this use. If it doesn’t you must contact NHS England to amend your DSA – see suggested wording below:
”Our Longitudinal Population Study (LPS) is part of the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). This provides us with a route to access linked NHS England records, the mechanism for which is supported by the UK LLC Data Sharing Agreement. We will use participants’ NHS IDs as provided through this linkage to the NHS Patient Register and supported by this DSA to facilitate our linkage to NHS England records via UK LLC. To do this, we will provide NHS IDs along with wider patient identifiers to UK LLC’s NHS trusted linkage third party. In turn, they will provide them to NHS England to establish their link. Using NHS IDs in this way will help ensure accuracy and consistency.”
If you have any questions about NHS IDs, please contact info@ukllc.ac.uk