Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Single Unique Identifier that the Government are piloting is the NHS number; what the (a) locations, (b) timing and (c) size of the pilot is; and how families have been informed.

The department is currently exploring the suitability of using the NHS number as a single unique identifier with Wigan local authority. This process will take several months. This first phase of work will explore whether success rates of linking children’s records can be improved within a local authority by using the NHS number provided by the NHS Personal Demographic Service. This work will inform future tests and pilots.

The department anticipates several rounds of piloting the different aspects of implementation to establish where it can have the right impact, and to understand the system costs and business process changes associated with its usage.

We will be working with NHS England and local authorities as part of the piloting process, to ensure that the data processed as part of the pilot is secure and meets legal requirements around the data subject's rights to be informed about how their information is processed. One way children and families are informed about how their personal information is used, is via privacy notices. Wigan’s privacy notices that are relevant in this context can be accessed at: https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Council/DataProtection-FOI-Stats/Privacy-notices/Privacy-Notices-for-all-services.aspx.