The Challenge
The aim was simple but high-impact: reduce errors during patient registration and improve the quality of demographic data held in their internal system (ERP). Clinicians were manually entering patient demographics into the internal ERP system at the point of registration. This created predictable issues: transcription errors, missing data, incorrect NHS numbers, and duplication. Staff had no reliable way to validate information against the national source of truth. The organisation wanted a fast, safe, and compliant way to retrieve official NHS demographic data the moment a new patient was added—without increasing workload for users.
The Solution
Digitals for Health designed and delivered an end-to-end PDS lookup workflow using QuickSilva’s API service. Clinicians now enter just two fields—NHS number and date of birth—and press Fetch from PDS. The system performs a secure, certificate-based query to the Spine and retrieves the patient’s official demographic record, including:
- NHS number
- Full name and date of birth
- Gender
- Address
- Telephone and email
- And others
The clinical portal automatically fills the registration form with this information. Users can review the data, make minor edits if required, and save the record to the internal ERP system with complete accuracy. If PDS finds no match, clinicians simply complete the registration manually. The project delivered a fully automated “Fetch from PDS” experience for clinicians and laid the foundation for future data-cleansing automation.
Data Quality and Safety by Design
A robust audit framework was implemented to meet NHS governance standards.
Every lookup records:
User ID and timestamp
NHS number queried
Whether a match was returned
Fields auto-populated
Any clinician edits before saving
The integration also safely handles complex scenarios—for example, notifying the user if the patient is deceased or if the NHS number has been superseded.
Technical Delivery
The solution uses a modern React frontend and a .NET backend communicating with QuickSilva over a secure HSCN/VPN connection with mutual TLS. The internal ERP receives clean, validated demographic data through controlled write operations. Core validation—such as NHS number modulus checks and date-of-birth rules—is applied before any PDS request is made.
Impact
The integration has transformed registration accuracy and reduced staff workload. Clinicians now trust that each new record starts with verified, complete data from the NHS Spine. Duplicate records have reduced, demographic discrepancies are fewer, and onboarding is faster and more consistent.
A Platform for Future Automation
The project also created a clear foundation for the next phase: a controlled “Compare with PDS” feature for existing records and scheduled overnight data-cleansing runs. These capabilities—already designed in detail—will enable the organisation to routinely reconcile thousands of records against PDS and raise data quality across the system.