Statutory Instruments
2015 No. 1439
National Health Service, England
Social Care, England
Public Health, England
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( 1 ):
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( 2 ).
Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health.
George Freeman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Department of Health
1st July 2015
2012 c.7 . Section 251A was inserted by section 2 of the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015 (c. 28) .