Personal Demographics Service (PDS)

The Personal Demographics Service (PDS) is the central national, electronic database holding the demographic details of NHS patients in England. It is the single central source of patient demographic information for the NHS. The PDS serves as the gateway to each clinical record, enabling NHS staff to quickly and accurately locate the correct clinical record uniquely associated with each patient. Information on the PDS is held nationally on the Spine and accessed by authorised NHS staff through their organisation's local system. The PDS does not hold any clinical information or other sensitive information such as religion or ethnicity.

The PDS is the foundation for the NHS Care Records Service (NHS CRS). Eventually each person's electronic NHS Care Record will comprise of:

• Demographic information, such as name, address, date of birth and NHS number held on PDS.
• Clinical medical information held on the Personal Spine Information Service (PSIS).

The PDS has a critical role in underpinning NHS systems as the gateway to services such as Choose and Book, the Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP), and QMAS, the GP payment system.

Introduced in June 2004, the PDS will, in time, become the sole national source of demographic information on patients for the NHS Care Records Service.