NHS England datasets

Last modified: 19 Nov 2024

Introduction

UK LLC has a data sharing agreement with NHS England to flow extracts of the 19 datasets listed in Table 1 into the UK LLC TRE. Although NHS England is not the owner of all the datasets (acting as data controller or data processor on behalf of the owner for some), for ease, we refer to all the datasets in these guides as NHS England datasets.

Note: Each LPS participant can opt out of linkage to their NHS England records.

UK LLC documentation of NHS England datasets

We have organised our NHS England data documentation into four tiers as explained in Figure 1. This initial guide provides an overview of the NHS England datasets held in the UK LLC TRE. The Processing and linkage guide explains how LPS participants are linked to their health records and how they can opt out. The Coded variables guide details the various classification systems used in NHS England datasets. The five overview dataset guides align with the dataset primary domains in Table 1 and provide an introduction to the hospital datasets, the COVID datasets, the registration datasets, the mental health datasets and the ‘other’ datasets, which is a collection of datasets that do not fit neatly into one of the other four groups. Finally, there is a series of more detailed individual dataset guides.

Figure 1 UK LLC documentation of the NHS England datasets is across four tiers, starting with this overview and culminating in the individual dataset guides

Overview of NHS England datasets

The NHS England datasets cover a variety of domains and time periods as summarised in Table 1 and Figure 2. Their geographic coverage is restricted to England, apart from those listed in the footnotes.
Note:

• The UK LLC Data Team does not change the names of the datasets when they are ingested to the UK LLC TRE, apart from SGSS where we added COVID in front of it to distinguish it from the UK Health Security Agency’s generalised Second Generation Surveillance System (SGSS).

• Some datasets have been renamed by NHS England, e.g. the CHESS dataset is now called the Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI-Watch) surveillance system and the IAPT dataset is now called the NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression dataset, but we still receive the data from NHS England as the CHESS and IAPT datasets, respectively.

• Some datasets have alternative names, e.g. NPEX is also called Covid-19 UK Non-hospital Antigen Testing Results and iELISA is also called Covid-19 UK Non-hospital Antibody Testing Results.

• Further nomenclatural details are available in the individual dataset guides.

Table 1 Names, availability and update frequency of NHS England datasets in the UK LLC TRE (datasets in italics are retired)

Dataset name in TRE	Full dataset name	Primary domain	Secondary domain	Data available in TRE1	Data owner	Update frequency1
HESOP	Hospital Episode Statistics Outpatients	Hospital	Outpatients	01/04/2003 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
HESAPC2	Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care	Hospital	Admitted patients	01/04/1998 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
ECDS	Emergency Care Data Set	Hospital	A & E patients	01/10/2017 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
HESAE	Hospital Episode Statistics Accident & Emergency	Hospital	A & E patients	01/04/2007 to 31/03/2020	NHSE	Annually
COVIDSGSS	COVID-19 Second Generation Surveillance System	COVID	Testing	06/04/2020 onwards	NHSE	Annually
IELISA3	Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay	COVID	Testing	01/09/2020 to 2022	DHSC	Annually
NPEX3	National Pathology Exchange	COVID	Testing	17/04/2020 onwards	DHSC	Annually
CHESS	COVID-19 Hospitalisation in England Surveillance System	COVID	Hospital	12/03/2020 to 01/10/2022	NHSE	Annually
CVS	COVID-19 Vaccination Status	COVID	Vaccination	08/12/2020 onwards	NHSE	Annually
CVAR	COVID-19 Vaccination Adverse Reactions	COVID	Vaccination	08/12/2020 onwards	NHSE	Annually
GDPPR	General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) Data for Pandemic Planning and Research	COVID	Primary care	1940s onwards	NHSE	Annually
CANCER	Cancer Registration Data	Registration	Cancer	01/01/1971 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
DEMOGRAPHICS4	Demographics Registration data	Registration	Demographics	01/06/2004 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
MORTALITY4	Civil Registrations of Death	Registration	Deaths	01/01/1993 onwards	ONS	Quarterly
MHSDS5	Mental Health Services Data Set	Mental health		01/04/2006 onwards	NHSE	Annually
IAPT	NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression	Mental health	Talking therapies	01/04/2012 to 31/03/2023	NHSE	Annually
CSDS	Community Services Data Set	Other	Community	01/04/2015 onwards	NHSE	Quarterly
MSDS	Maternity Services Data Set	Other	Maternity	TBC	NHSE	Annually
PCM	Primary Care Medicines	Other	Medicines	01/04/2015 onwards	NHSE	Annually

¹As documented in the data sharing agreement.
²HESAPC includes critical care (HESAPC_ACP and HESCC) and maternity care (HESAPC_MAT).
³NPEX and IELISA cover England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
⁴MORTALITY and DEMOGRAPHICS cover England and Wales.
⁵Within MHSDS we include its two precursors, the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Data Set (MHLDDS) and the Mental Health Minimum Data Set (MHMDS).
DHSC: Department of Health and Social Care; NHSE: NHS England; ONS: Office for National Statistics