Personal Demographics Service (PDS)
Published on: 14th September 2015 | Updated on: 7th July 2026
The Personal Demographics Service (PDS) is the NHS national database that holds key patient details. These include a person’s name, date of birth, NHS number and their nominated pharmacy.
PDS helps pharmacy teams quickly and accurately confirm patient identity, supporting safe and efficient care.
Registration Authorities (RAs) are responsible for registering pharmacy team members who need access. Access is provided using NHS Smartcards.
PDS helps pharmacy teams, GP practice staff and other NHS professionals correctly identify patients.
Records are usually created when a patient first registers with a GP. Babies are now also issued with an NHS number shortly after birth.
Pharmacy teams can access PDS through:
- their pharmacy IT system supplier system; or
- secure NHS web-based portals.
PDS is part of the NHS Spine, which is a national system holding important health and care information.
PDS only contains demographic information. It does not include clinical or sensitive data such as ethnicity or religion.
A few of the key fields involved and their descriptions are listed below:
| PDS fields | Description of data |
| NHS number | The unique patient identifier. |
| Patient name | Including preferred name, e.g. Rob rather than Robert. |
| Date of birth | The patient’s date of birth. |
| Date of death | The patient’s date of death. |
| Gender | Gender. |
| Address | Includes main, temporary and correspondence addresses. |
| Contact details | E.g. telephone number, email address etc. |
| Nominated dispensing contractor | The patient’s nominated dispensing contractor which may include a community pharmacy, dispensing appliance contractor and a dispensing doctor. |
A table with further fields:
| PDS fields | Description of data |
| Primary care | The GP Practice with whom the patient is registered. |
| Preferred contact times | Patient’s preferred contact times. |
| Preferred contact method | The patient’s preferred contact method, e.g. telephone contact, sign language preferences etc. |
| NHS Care Record consent to share status | Indicates that the patient has agreed to share their health record. |
| Serial change number | The mechanism for synchronising local and national records. |
NHS England provides an e-learning course for all NHS staff, including pharmacy team members.
The course explains how PDS works and how demographic data is used within clinical systems, including pharmacy IT systems.
It includes the following modules:
- Introduction;
- Security and confidentiality;
- Tracing a patient; and
- The PDS patient record.
You can access this via NHS England (external link).
Q. What information governance controls are in place for PDS?
All NHS providers, including community pharmacies, must provide information governance assurances to the NHS each year.
PDS includes several safeguards to protect patient information:
- All Smartcard activity is recorded, including patient searches, record access and updates;
- Role-based access controls ensure staff only access information needed for their job;
- Extra protection is applied to sensitive records, restricting access where needed; and
- Audit tools allow privacy officers to monitor who has accessed or changed records, helping identify appropriate use.
Further information
Read more:
- PDS (NHS)
For more information on this topic please email comms.team@cpe.org.uk
