Office for National Statistics (ONS): The Digital Economy Act 2017 amended the Statistics and Services Registration Act (SRSA) 2007 such that ONS can request or require information is shared by a crown body, other publ

Data-sharing agreement from NHS Digital registers of approved data releases, 2014–2019. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Source reference: DARS-NIC-177068-M1P0L-v0.3
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

Register reference: DARS-NIC-177068-M1P0L-v0.3
Agreement period: not published to no end date published
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): Not stated
Release files listed by NHS England: 3

Data approved

Hospital Episode Statistics Accident and Emergency
Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care
Hospital Episode Statistics Outpatients

Objective, as published

The Digital Economy Act 2017 amended the Statistics and Services Registration Act (SRSA) 2007 such that ONS can request or require information is shared by a crown body, other public authority, charity or undertaking as long as it is for its functions (essentially statistics and statistical research). Where a request is made, the data controller may disclose the information and this permissive power overcomes any other duty of confidence the organisation may have, except if sharing the data would contravene the Data Protection Act, relevant parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, or relevant EU legislation. No other legislation is mentioned (e.g. care act). The part of the legislation covering this permissive gateway has been live since July 2017. The power to require data are shared is not yet live. This part of the legislation requires a code of practice to underpin it and this must be approved by parliament. The code has been drafted and consulted upon. Parliamentary approval of the code is expected by the end of June 2018. In discussions with NHS Digital (including its, Caldicott guardian), it was agreed that ONS would acquire data for its functions under this latter power to require. Therefore ONS cannot require HES data are shared with it until this power is live. In the meantime, ONS is working with NHS Digital’s analytical experts to better understand HES data and whether it will be fit for the statistical purposes to which ONS wants to put it. Remote access to pseudo…

Expected benefits, as published

The main short term benefit is to support ONS in learning more about HES data quality and supporting it in determining what HES data to subsequently require are shared with it under the Statistics and Registration Services Act 2007, as amended by the Digital Economy Act, 2017. The proposed ultimate statistical uses for the data acquired under those powers / that application, are detailed in the objectives section. The potential benefits of that statistical research (which will not be possible based on remote access to HES alone) are: 1. Admin Data Census project and improved migration statistics Population estimates and information on population characteristics are used by a wide range of national and local organisations for numerous purposes including resource and funding allocation for…

Source: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/2019/https://digital.nhs.uk/binaries/content/assets/website-assets/services/dars/release-registers/releaseregister20190301_20190331.xlsx. Captured 2026-10-30.

Limitations: Agreement as recorded in an NHS Digital register of approved data releases (2014–2019), retrieved from the UK Government Web Archive. That register lists releases made in its period and the agreement's purpose statement as it then stood; it gives no agreement dates, and the agreement may have changed since. Imported only where a paper quotes a reference no current register holds.