The Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Consistent Identifier) Regulations 2015

Made: 1st July 2015

Laid before Parliament: 7th July 2015

Coming into force: 1st October 2015

The Secretary of State makes the following Regulations in exercise of the power conferred by section 251A(1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012[^f00001]:

Citation, commencement and interpretation

1

• (1) —These Regulations may be cited as the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Consistent Identifier) Regulations 2015.

• (2) These Regulations come into force on 1st October 2015.

• (3) In these Regulations, “the Act” means the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Consistent identifier

2

• (1) For the purposes of section 251A (consistent identifiers) of the Act the NHS Number is specified as a consistent identifier.

• (2) In this regulation–

• (a) “NHS Number” means the number, consisting of 10 numeric digits, which serves as the national unique identifier used for the purpose of safely, accurately and efficiently sharing information relating to a registered patient across the whole of the health service in England;

• (b) “the health service” has the meaning given in section 275 (index of defined expressions) of the National Health Service Act 2006[^f00002].

Signed

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health.

George Freeman — Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State — Department of Health — 1st July 2015

Explanatory note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

EXPLANATORY NOTE

These Regulations, made under section 251A(1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (“the Act”) as inserted by section 4 of the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”), specify the description of the consistent identifier to be used by relevant health or adult social care commissioners or providers as defined by section 251A(3) of the Act.

Under regulation 2, the NHS Number is specified as a consistent identifier for the purposes of section 251A of the Act.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as the Regulations themselves have no impact on the private sector or civil society organisations. A full impact assessment has been produced in relation to the provisions of the 2015 Act, and copies are available at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA14-23.pdf and from The Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, SW1A 2NS.

Footnotes

[^f00001]: 2012 c.7. Section 251A was inserted by section 2 of the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015 (c. 28).

[^f00002]: 2006 c.41.