NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
NHS England · Agency/Public Body
In term In term in the September 2026 edition: the latest version runs to 17 March 2028.
- Reference
- DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S
- Current version
- v4.4
- Term of current version
- 9 July 2026 to 17 March 2028
- Start date
- 31 October 2025
- Data controller
- Joint Data Controller
- Commercial purposes
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Files released to date
- 0
Data controllers
Why the data was released
Objective for processing
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England require access to NHS England Data to conduct timely analysis in response to ministerial and senior officials. This requirement aligns with the statutory duties of the Secretary of State for Health as outlined in the National Health Service Act 2006. The relevant legislative provisions are:
- DHSC – Secretary of State: section 1A - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
- NHSE – Section 13E - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
The specific analyses required will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The analyses will be undertaken on behalf of DHSC and NHS England by project teams made up of a combination of DHSC and NHS England analysts.
To enable effective joint working, analysts required access to NHSEs pseudonymised data environments, which will be done by creating an area where both DHSC/NHSE colleagues can view and analyse the same data. The datasets will be analysed in line with either of the following models:
• Joint Project – DHSC/NHSE have separate statutory functions as the basis for conducting activities and processing personal data, but those functions are related, and consequently their exercise is aligned. The purposes for processing are jointly determined to achieve this aligned exercise of functions.
• Agency Model - One Party’s statutory or other lawful basis underpins the processing, but the processing may be conducted by employees of both Parties and may involve access to personal data held by one of the Parties. The means the analysis is determined by the Party whose function is being discharged.
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received.
The Data will be used for the following:
1. Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: this will inform delivery of the Elective Reform Plan that sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029. It will also inform development and delivery of the forthcoming cancer plan, which is expected to be published in the Autumn. The analyses will feed into funding decisions, policy development, the transformation of services, operational planning and management, and monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the policies adopted, initiatives taken forward and decisions made will have a stronger evidence base and consequently a greater likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.
Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics analytical Workstation (including a Cancer-specific Workstation) which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the ECD area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as elective demand/capacity/activity modelling, elective/cancer/diagnostic performance, dataset and metric development and publication processing.
Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to aid the programme as we all work to achieve the elective (percentage waiting within 18 weeks), cancer (faster diagnosis and 62-day combined), and diagnostic (percentage waiting over 6 weeks) standards and ambitions.
DHSC policy colleagues within the ECD programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP ECD Workstation (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner.
2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care will undertake analysis of Patient Level Costing Data to understand why non-elective efficiency has reduced since the pandemic. It is a critical issue for the running of the NHS, and is also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. Unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic beyond inflation. To understand what has caused this and what can be done to rectify analysis of Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS), National Cost Collection for the NHS, SUS and HES is needed. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England.
3. Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The merger of NHSE and DHSC Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Programme teams will provide streamlined national guidance and support to drive continuous improvement in elective and urgent and emergency care services across the NHS. Work of the programme works to commitments made in the Long-Term Plan for urgent and emergency care services and comprises workstreams relating to Integrated urgent care; Urgent treatment centres; Ambulance; Hospitals; Clinical review of NHS access standards and; Reducing length of stay.
In addition, the programme is working collaboratively to meet the immediate objectives of the Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing UEC analytical workspace which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the UEC area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as 111, 999, A&E, discharges and others. Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to inform the change programme in the UEC plan, the 10 year health plan and the 3 year UEC strategy.
DHSC policy colleagues within the UEC programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP UEC Product (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner. Outputs made available to the DHSC policy colleagues UEC may include unsuppressed Data, but will not be exported from the FDP.
Only personnel of DHSC or NHS England are eligible to request and/or be given access to the Data.
Specific analyses will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The purpose must be:
1. Aligned to statutory functions of DHSC and / or NHS England; and
2. A collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England; and
3. Required to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs. These needs may arise following engagement with ministers or senior officials within DHSC, No.10, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NHS England (central and regional teams), other NHS organisations, or relevant external stakeholders.
Data cannot be used for purposes outside the scope of the purpose outlined above.
Requests will be submitted to representatives of the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and discussed with representatives from NHS England Data Access & Partnership team and Privacy, Transparency and Trust (PTT). Requests identified where processing will be undertaken as a joint working project will be approved by a senior member of NHS England PTT and the relevant dataset Information Asset Owner (IAO).
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single DPIA that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received. Criteria used to approve include:
- The Directions under which the Data are collected and processed do not include any restrictions which would preclude use by DHSC or for the proposed purpose.
- The IAO is content for access to be provided
- The purpose is aligned to statutory functions of DHSC / NHS England as outlined in this DSA
- The project is collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England
- The project is required for rapid policy analysts to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs.
- The purpose is connected with health and care.
The following steps will be taken to enable joint working/joint access to the data:
1. Identification of in scope project requests:
Representative from the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and NHS England Data Access & Partnerships will maintain a list of project requests and required datasets. This includes a proposed purpose, dataset, outputs and benefits of the use of data. This will identify whether the purpose of the request is aligned to DHSC sole controllership or where processing is a joint working project requiring governance in the form of adding to the joint working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement.
Where it is a joint working project, the DHSC and NHS England representative will liaise with the relevant analytical leads at DHSC and NHS England to determine whether the purpose is for joint working or agency working.
2. Update of the DHSC-NHSE Joint Working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement (NIC-780525-J4L3S)
When it has been agreed that the request is a collaboration or joint working project, NHS England PTT representative will work with the relevant NHS England project lead to update the DPIA with details of the project. This will include purpose of analysis, the dataset of data to be transferred to the NHS England pseudonymised environment, the statutory basis for collection, analysis, processing and dissemination, and proposed benefits of processing. The relevant dataset IAO is required to confirm agreement for access to be provided.
3. Assurance of the Joint Working DPIA and update of the joint working DSA
The DPIA will be reviewed and approved by a senior member of the NHS England PTT. The updated DPIA will be shared with the Data Access Service (DAS) who will update this DSA and released for signature.
4. Access arrangements
The relevant NHSE Data Platform team will be informed by NHS England PTT that the Joint working DPIA has been updated for a particular use case. The DAS will confirm when the DSA has been approved. The NHS England Data Platform team will transfer the Data into the pseudonymised data environment and onboard the approved DHSC / NHS England analysts to do the specified work environment.
Processing activities
No data will flow to NHS England for the purposes of this Data Sharing Agreement (DSA).
For each approved project, the NHS England platform team will transfer the required dataset into a project specific “Pseudonymised Data Environment” in the Unified Data Access Layer (UDAL) or the Federated Data Platform (FDP) and will onboard approved analysts to do the specific work.
The Data will contain a pseudonymised ID which allows it to be linked to other datasets required for the specific project.
The Data will contain no direct identifying data items. The Data will be pseudonymised and individuals cannot be reidentified through linkage with other data in the possession of the recipient.
The Data will not be transferred to any other location.
The Data will be stored on servers at NHS England.
Palantir Technologies UK Ltd support the FDP for NHS England and are listed as a data processor. Palantir Technologies UK Ltd support the system and so will have access to personal data for support purposes.
Amazon Web Services supply Cloud Services for Palantir Technologies UK Ltd and are therefore listed as a data processor, they supply support to the system but do not access data.
Microsoft Limited supply cloud services for UDAL and are therefore listed as a data processor, they supply support to the system but do not access data.
The Data will be accessed by authorised personnel via remote access.
The Controller must confirm and provide evidence upon audit by NHS England that access via any remote device complies with the data security obligations within this DSA and the Data Sharing Framework Contract.
For remote access:
- Remote access will only be from secure locations situated within the territory of use (as further restricted elsewhere within the DSA if so done) stated within this DSA;
- Access controls granting users the minimum level of access required are in place;
- Remote access is only via secure connections (e.g., VPNs or secure protocols) to protect data;
- Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for remote access;
- Device security, including up-to-date software and operating systems, antivirus software, and enabled firewalls are utilised for the remote access;
- All remote access is undertaken within the scope of the organisation’s DSPT (or other security arrangements as per this DSA) and complies with the organisation’s remote access policy.
The above applies in addition to any condition set out elsewhere within the DSA (e.g. who may carry out processing, and for what purpose).
Access is restricted to substantive employees of DHSC, seconded staff and substantive employees of NHS England.
Only a limited number of DHSC/NHSE analysts will be given access to the data in NHSE’s pseudonymised data environment for the purposes for each project. The analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations
All personnel accessing the Data have been appropriately trained in data protection and confidentiality.
Expected output
Elective, Cancer and Diagnostics Analysis: Access to the data will support policy analysis on demand, activity and waiting time between pathways to inform progress on Govt/DHSC priority of reducing the elective waiting list. This data set will be essential in developing future policy on best-timed pathways, as well as monitor progress of the elective reform plan and target live policy issues such as the change in case-mix in the elective waiting list. This dataset will allow further examination of variation in Elective Pathways between trusts due to difference in practice and difference in case-mix. This will enable policy interventions to target specific trusts and specific areas of the pathway and areas to help support the main priority of improving performance on the 18ww target and reducing the waiting list. It will also be used to support spending reviews, allowing for the evidencing of key assumptions underpinning these.
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will be used to understand why unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic. This includes how different categories of spend have changed since the pandemic, in which organisations and in which healthcare resource group (HRG). Analysis at this level of detail is required to identify which unit cost increases have been caused by changes in case-mix, provider mix or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable. Outputs will also help understand how changes in the use of resources are affecting NHS productivity. Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The use of the workstation for joint DHSC/NHSE working will allow analysts from both teams the ability to collaborate on projects such as analysing the ambulance dataset (ADS) to enable learning and policy development, as well as allowing delivery of any new requests from UEC stakeholders, giving UEC analysts the ability to prioritise workload across both teams. This could include development of new dashboards within the workstations to allow UEC customers (for example the DHSC UEC policy team) to “self-serve” or less formal responses to ad hoc data requests. DHSC UEC policy team members will have access to outputs within the UEC workstation as “unrestricted viewers” and the some of the workstation outputs may include unsuppressed data. These will not be exported from the FDP.
The expected outputs produced for the requested datasets might include:
- Data dashboards;
- Written Reports and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues, and NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Creation of software tools to track metrics within DHSC
- National, regional and provider tables on information relevant to the specific project.
The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following dissemination channels:
- Data dashboards for use within DHSC and NHS England
- Written reports/briefing documents and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Workshops with DHSC officials, Ministers NHS England and other government departments
Written reports/briefing documents and presentations are produced as and when requested. Data Dashboards will be refreshed in line with the refresh frequency of the data underlying them.
The outputs exported from the relevant NHS England platform will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.
The expected outputs of the processing will include tables, plot and reports required by each project. For each project, the analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations.
Expected measurable benefits
The benefits of joint working and use of data is necessary to (a) prevent situations where conflicting information is presented to ministers, senior officials, policy teams and programme colleagues as a result of differences in how the data are processed and used; and (b) enable NHS England and DHSC to make use of a larger and more diverse pool of analytical resource to make sufficiently rapid progress on a wider set of projects, to identify and deploy the best analytical approaches, and to maximise the insightfulness and impact of the results.
The use of the data could:
- Help the system to better understand the health and care needs of populations.
- Lead to the identification or improvement of treatments or interventions, or health and care system design to improve health and care outcomes or experience
- Advance understanding of regional and national trends in health and social care needs
- Inform planning health services and programmes
- Inform decisions on how to effectively allocate and evaluate funding according to health needs
- Provide a mechanism for checking the quality of care. This could include identifying areas of good practice to learn from, or areas of poorer practice which need to be addressed.
Patients might benefit from:
- Better evidence-based policy making
- Better outcomes from fewer patients having delayed discharges, meaning more capacity for new patients and better outcomes for patients with less delay.
- Inform Ministerial decision-making
- Lead to the identification or improvement of interventions, or health and care system design to improve health and care outcomes
- Advance understanding of regional and national trends in health and social care needs
- To improvements in health outcomes for cancer or other patients
- The data is used to inform and monitor policy decisions. Better understanding of the data will help inform colleagues and ministers to make effective decisions.
Project Specific Benefits:
Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: individuals who are currently waiting for cancer, other elective or diagnostic treatment or who will require further treatment in the future will benefit from improvements in the quality, timeliness and efficiency of those services. Individuals who will require further treatment in the future, or whose friends and family will require treatment, will benefit from improvements in the quality, timeliness and efficiency of those services. The wider public will also benefit through the positive impact on public finances, both directly as a result of the improved efficiency of those services and indirectly through the impact of better health on the wider economy.
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: acting on opportunities for improved productivity derived from the analysis supports the NHS to deliver the target to deliver a 2% year-on-year productivity gain for the next 3 years as set out in the 10 Year Health Plan for England. Increased productivity and efficiency will deliver measurable benefits in terms of more treatments for NHS patients, shorter waiting times for elective care and better provision of emergency care. This work will identify productivity opportunity for providers by showing which are optimal mixes of resources for certain populations. Increasing NHS productivity will mean more patients can be treated for the same amount of money. This will help reduce waiting lists and so patients will spend less time in pain/ill health waiting for treatment.
Urgent and Emergency Care team working: Use of this data supports commissioners and policy makers to understand issues within the UEC system, use evidence to identify and test potential solutions and thus inform policy decisions ultimately leading to improvements to UEC systems and better patient experience.
Benefits reported so far
Not stated in the register.
Datasets on the current version
Legal basis for provision: Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d); Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d); Other-NHS Act 2006 s.13Z3 (e) and (f); Other-NHS Act 2006 s.13Z3 (e) and (f)
| Dataset | Type of data | Sensitivity | Frequency | Confidential data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| e-Referral Service - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics Workstation – FDP | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| HES - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| PLICS Aggregate - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Referral to Treatment Monthly Data - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Secondary Uses Service - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| UEC Workstation - FDP | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Non-Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
| Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL | Anonymised - ICO Code Compliant | Sensitive | System Access | Does not include the flow of confidential data |
Files released
Files released counts only files released externally by DARS. Access granted in NHS England's own systems, such as its Secure Data Environment, is not included.
No files recorded as released under this agreement.
Version history
The register lists each renewal of this agreement as a separate row. This site has 5 versions.
DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v4.4 9 July 2026 to 17 March 2028
- Title
- NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 16
- Files released
- 0
Datasets: Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL; Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL; e-Referral Service - UDAL; Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL; Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics Workstation – FDP; HES - UDAL; National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL; National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL; Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL; PLICS Aggregate - UDAL; Referral to Treatment Monthly Data - UDAL; Secondary Uses Service - UDAL; SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL; SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL; UEC Workstation - FDP; Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL
What changed from DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v3.2
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Start date | 2026-07-09 | |
| End date | 2028-03-17 |
Datasets: + HES - UDAL
Objective for processing
[13 paragraphs unchanged] 2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the [37 words unchanged] also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. Unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic beyond inflation. To understand what has caused this and what can be done to rectify analysis of Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS), National Cost Collection for the NHS, SUS and HES is needed. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England. [28 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected output
[1 paragraph unchanged]
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will
[62 words unchanged]
or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable.
Outputs will also help understand how changes in the use of resources are affecting NHS productivity. Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
[13 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected measurable benefits
[18 paragraphs unchanged] Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: acting on opportunities for improved [51 words unchanged] shorter waiting times for elective care and better provision of emergency care. This work will identify productivity opportunity for providers by showing which are optimal mixes of resources for certain populations. Increasing NHS productivity will mean more patients can be treated for the same amount of money. This will help reduce waiting lists and so patients will spend less time in pain/ill health waiting for treatment. [1 paragraph unchanged]
Unchanged: Processing activities.
DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v3.2 20 March 2026 to 17 March 2029
- Title
- NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 15
- Files released
- 0
Datasets: Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL; Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL; e-Referral Service - UDAL; Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL; Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics Workstation – FDP; National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL; National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL; Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL; PLICS Aggregate - UDAL; Referral to Treatment Monthly Data - UDAL; Secondary Uses Service - UDAL; SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL; SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL; UEC Workstation - FDP; Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL
What changed from DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v2.2
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Start date | 2026-03-20 | |
| End date | 2029-03-17 | |
| PLICS Aggregate - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) |
Datasets: + Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics Workstation – FDP; + Referral to Treatment Monthly Data - UDAL
Objective for processing
[10 paragraphs unchanged] Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics analytical Workstation (including a Cancer-specific Workstation) which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the ECD area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as elective demand/capacity/activity modelling, elective/cancer/diagnostic performance, dataset and metric development and publication processing. Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to aid the programme as we all work to achieve the elective (percentage waiting within 18 weeks), cancer (faster diagnosis and 62-day combined), and diagnostic (percentage waiting over 6 weeks) standards and ambitions. DHSC policy colleagues within the ECD programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP ECD Workstation (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner. [4 paragraphs unchanged] DHSC policy colleagues within the UEC programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP UEC Product (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner. Outputs made available to the DHSC policy colleagues UEC may include unsuppressed Data, but will not be exported from the FDP. [24 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected output
[3 paragraphs unchanged] Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The use of the workstation for [53 words unchanged] include development of new dashboards within the workstations to allow UEC customers (for example the DHSC UEC policy team) to “self-serve” or less formal responses to ad hoc data requests. DHSC UEC policy team members will have access to outputs within the UEC workstation as “unrestricted viewers” and the some of the workstation outputs may include unsuppressed data. These will not be exported from the FDP. [10 paragraphs unchanged] The outputs exported from the relevant NHS England platform will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated [11 words unchanged] relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived. [1 paragraph unchanged]
Unchanged: Processing activities, Expected measurable benefits.
Objective for processing
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England require access to NHS England Data to conduct timely analysis in response to ministerial and senior officials. This requirement aligns with the statutory duties of the Secretary of State for Health as outlined in the National Health Service Act 2006. The relevant legislative provisions are:
- DHSC – Secretary of State: section 1A - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
- NHSE – Section 13E - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
The specific analyses required will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The analyses will be undertaken on behalf of DHSC and NHS England by project teams made up of a combination of DHSC and NHS England analysts.
To enable effective joint working, analysts required access to NHSEs pseudonymised data environments, which will be done by creating an area where both DHSC/NHSE colleagues can view and analyse the same data. The datasets will be analysed in line with either of the following models:
• Joint Project – DHSC/NHSE have separate statutory functions as the basis for conducting activities and processing personal data, but those functions are related, and consequently their exercise is aligned. The purposes for processing are jointly determined to achieve this aligned exercise of functions.
• Agency Model - One Party’s statutory or other lawful basis underpins the processing, but the processing may be conducted by employees of both Parties and may involve access to personal data held by one of the Parties. The means the analysis is determined by the Party whose function is being discharged.
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received.
The Data will be used for the following:
1. Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: this will inform delivery of the Elective Reform Plan that sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029. It will also inform development and delivery of the forthcoming cancer plan, which is expected to be published in the Autumn. The analyses will feed into funding decisions, policy development, the transformation of services, operational planning and management, and monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the policies adopted, initiatives taken forward and decisions made will have a stronger evidence base and consequently a greater likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.
Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing Elective, Cancer, and Diagnostics analytical Workstation (including a Cancer-specific Workstation) which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the ECD area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as elective demand/capacity/activity modelling, elective/cancer/diagnostic performance, dataset and metric development and publication processing.
Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to aid the programme as we all work to achieve the elective (percentage waiting within 18 weeks), cancer (faster diagnosis and 62-day combined), and diagnostic (percentage waiting over 6 weeks) standards and ambitions.
DHSC policy colleagues within the ECD programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP ECD Workstation (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner.
2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care will undertake analysis of Patient Level Costing Data to understand why non-elective efficiency has reduced since the pandemic. It is a critical issue for the running of the NHS, and is also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England.
3. Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The merger of NHSE and DHSC Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Programme teams will provide streamlined national guidance and support to drive continuous improvement in elective and urgent and emergency care services across the NHS. Work of the programme works to commitments made in the Long-Term Plan for urgent and emergency care services and comprises workstreams relating to Integrated urgent care; Urgent treatment centres; Ambulance; Hospitals; Clinical review of NHS access standards and; Reducing length of stay.
In addition, the programme is working collaboratively to meet the immediate objectives of the Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing UEC analytical workspace which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the UEC area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as 111, 999, A&E, discharges and others. Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to inform the change programme in the UEC plan, the 10 year health plan and the 3 year UEC strategy.
DHSC policy colleagues within the UEC programme will be permitted to view the outputs of aggregate data in the FDP UEC Product (or to have outputs of aggregate data shared with them), subject to approval by the product owner. Outputs made available to the DHSC policy colleagues UEC may include unsuppressed Data, but will not be exported from the FDP.
Only personnel of DHSC or NHS England are eligible to request and/or be given access to the Data.
Specific analyses will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The purpose must be:
1. Aligned to statutory functions of DHSC and / or NHS England; and
2. A collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England; and
3. Required to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs. These needs may arise following engagement with ministers or senior officials within DHSC, No.10, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NHS England (central and regional teams), other NHS organisations, or relevant external stakeholders.
Data cannot be used for purposes outside the scope of the purpose outlined above.
Requests will be submitted to representatives of the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and discussed with representatives from NHS England Data Access & Partnership team and Privacy, Transparency and Trust (PTT). Requests identified where processing will be undertaken as a joint working project will be approved by a senior member of NHS England PTT and the relevant dataset Information Asset Owner (IAO).
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single DPIA that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received. Criteria used to approve include:
- The Directions under which the Data are collected and processed do not include any restrictions which would preclude use by DHSC or for the proposed purpose.
- The IAO is content for access to be provided
- The purpose is aligned to statutory functions of DHSC / NHS England as outlined in this DSA
- The project is collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England
- The project is required for rapid policy analysts to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs.
- The purpose is connected with health and care.
The following steps will be taken to enable joint working/joint access to the data:
1. Identification of in scope project requests:
Representative from the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and NHS England Data Access & Partnerships will maintain a list of project requests and required datasets. This includes a proposed purpose, dataset, outputs and benefits of the use of data. This will identify whether the purpose of the request is aligned to DHSC sole controllership or where processing is a joint working project requiring governance in the form of adding to the joint working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement.
Where it is a joint working project, the DHSC and NHS England representative will liaise with the relevant analytical leads at DHSC and NHS England to determine whether the purpose is for joint working or agency working.
2. Update of the DHSC-NHSE Joint Working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement (NIC-780525-J4L3S)
When it has been agreed that the request is a collaboration or joint working project, NHS England PTT representative will work with the relevant NHS England project lead to update the DPIA with details of the project. This will include purpose of analysis, the dataset of data to be transferred to the NHS England pseudonymised environment, the statutory basis for collection, analysis, processing and dissemination, and proposed benefits of processing. The relevant dataset IAO is required to confirm agreement for access to be provided.
3. Assurance of the Joint Working DPIA and update of the joint working DSA
The DPIA will be reviewed and approved by a senior member of the NHS England PTT. The updated DPIA will be shared with the Data Access Service (DAS) who will update this DSA and released for signature.
4. Access arrangements
The relevant NHSE Data Platform team will be informed by NHS England PTT that the Joint working DPIA has been updated for a particular use case. The DAS will confirm when the DSA has been approved. The NHS England Data Platform team will transfer the Data into the pseudonymised data environment and onboard the approved DHSC / NHS England analysts to do the specified work environment.
Expected output
Elective, Cancer and Diagnostics Analysis: Access to the data will support policy analysis on demand, activity and waiting time between pathways to inform progress on Govt/DHSC priority of reducing the elective waiting list. This data set will be essential in developing future policy on best-timed pathways, as well as monitor progress of the elective reform plan and target live policy issues such as the change in case-mix in the elective waiting list. This dataset will allow further examination of variation in Elective Pathways between trusts due to difference in practice and difference in case-mix. This will enable policy interventions to target specific trusts and specific areas of the pathway and areas to help support the main priority of improving performance on the 18ww target and reducing the waiting list. It will also be used to support spending reviews, allowing for the evidencing of key assumptions underpinning these.
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will be used to understand why unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic. This includes how different categories of spend have changed since the pandemic, in which organisations and in which healthcare resource group (HRG). Analysis at this level of detail is required to identify which unit cost increases have been caused by changes in case-mix, provider mix or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable.
Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The use of the workstation for joint DHSC/NHSE working will allow analysts from both teams the ability to collaborate on projects such as analysing the ambulance dataset (ADS) to enable learning and policy development, as well as allowing delivery of any new requests from UEC stakeholders, giving UEC analysts the ability to prioritise workload across both teams. This could include development of new dashboards within the workstations to allow UEC customers (for example the DHSC UEC policy team) to “self-serve” or less formal responses to ad hoc data requests. DHSC UEC policy team members will have access to outputs within the UEC workstation as “unrestricted viewers” and the some of the workstation outputs may include unsuppressed data. These will not be exported from the FDP.
The expected outputs produced for the requested datasets might include:
- Data dashboards;
- Written Reports and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues, and NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Creation of software tools to track metrics within DHSC
- National, regional and provider tables on information relevant to the specific project.
The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following dissemination channels:
- Data dashboards for use within DHSC and NHS England
- Written reports/briefing documents and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Workshops with DHSC officials, Ministers NHS England and other government departments
Written reports/briefing documents and presentations are produced as and when requested. Data Dashboards will be refreshed in line with the refresh frequency of the data underlying them.
The outputs exported from the relevant NHS England platform will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.
The expected outputs of the processing will include tables, plot and reports required by each project. For each project, the analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations.
DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v2.2 18 December 2025 to 16 December 2028
- Title
- NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 13
- Files released
- 0
Datasets: Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL; Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL; e-Referral Service - UDAL; Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL; National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL; National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL; Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL; PLICS Aggregate - UDAL; Secondary Uses Service - UDAL; SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL; SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL; UEC Workstation - FDP; Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL
What changed from DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v1.2
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Start date | 2025-12-18 | |
| End date | 2028-12-16 |
Datasets: + UEC Workstation - FDP
Objective for processing
[11 paragraphs unchanged] 3. Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The merger of NHSE and DHSC Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Programme teams will provide streamlined national guidance and support to drive continuous improvement in elective and urgent and emergency care services across the NHS. Work of the programme works to commitments made in the Long-Term Plan for urgent and emergency care services and comprises workstreams relating to Integrated urgent care; Urgent treatment centres; Ambulance; Hospitals; Clinical review of NHS access standards and; Reducing length of stay. In addition, the programme is working collaboratively to meet the immediate objectives of the Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/ Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing UEC analytical workspace which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the UEC area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as 111, 999, A&E, discharges and others. Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to inform the change programme in the UEC plan, the 10 year health plan and the 3 year UEC strategy. [24 paragraphs unchanged]
Processing activities
[6 paragraphs unchanged] Palantir Technologies UK Ltd support the FDP for NHS England and are listed as a data processor. Palantir Technologies UK Ltd support the system and so will have access to personal data for support purposes. Amazon Web Services supply Cloud Services for Palantir Technologies UK Ltd and are therefore listed as a data processor, they supply support to the system but do not access data. Microsoft Limited supply cloud services for UDAL and are therefore listed as a data processor, they supply support to the system but do not access data. [13 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected output
[3 paragraphs unchanged] Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The use of the workstation for joint DHSC/NHSE working will allow analysts from both teams the ability to collaborate on projects such as analysing the ambulance dataset (ADS) to enable learning and policy development, as well as allowing delivery of any new requests from UEC stakeholders, giving UEC analysts the ability to prioritise workload across both teams. This could include development of new dashboards within the workstations to allow UEC customers to “self-serve” or less formal responses to ad hoc data requests. [12 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected measurable benefits
[19 paragraphs unchanged] Urgent and Emergency Care team working: Use of this data supports commissioners and policy makers to understand issues within the UEC system, use evidence to identify and test potential solutions and thus inform policy decisions ultimately leading to improvements to UEC systems and better patient experience.
Benefits reported
Stated in the previous version and removed here.
None yet reported
Objective for processing
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England require access to NHS England Data to conduct timely analysis in response to ministerial and senior officials. This requirement aligns with the statutory duties of the Secretary of State for Health as outlined in the National Health Service Act 2006. The relevant legislative provisions are:
- DHSC – Secretary of State: section 1A - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
- NHSE – Section 13E - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
The specific analyses required will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The analyses will be undertaken on behalf of DHSC and NHS England by project teams made up of a combination of DHSC and NHS England analysts.
To enable effective joint working, analysts required access to NHSEs pseudonymised data environments, which will be done by creating an area where both DHSC/NHSE colleagues can view and analyse the same data. The datasets will be analysed in line with either of the following models:
• Joint Project – DHSC/NHSE have separate statutory functions as the basis for conducting activities and processing personal data, but those functions are related, and consequently their exercise is aligned. The purposes for processing are jointly determined to achieve this aligned exercise of functions.
• Agency Model - One Party’s statutory or other lawful basis underpins the processing, but the processing may be conducted by employees of both Parties and may involve access to personal data held by one of the Parties. The means the analysis is determined by the Party whose function is being discharged.
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received.
The Data will be used for the following:
1. Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: this will inform delivery of the Elective Reform Plan that sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029. It will also inform development and delivery of the forthcoming cancer plan, which is expected to be published in the Autumn. The analyses will feed into funding decisions, policy development, the transformation of services, operational planning and management, and monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the policies adopted, initiatives taken forward and decisions made will have a stronger evidence base and consequently a greater likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.
2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care will undertake analysis of Patient Level Costing Data to understand why non-elective efficiency has reduced since the pandemic. It is a critical issue for the running of the NHS, and is also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England.
3. Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The merger of NHSE and DHSC Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Programme teams will provide streamlined national guidance and support to drive continuous improvement in elective and urgent and emergency care services across the NHS. Work of the programme works to commitments made in the Long-Term Plan for urgent and emergency care services and comprises workstreams relating to Integrated urgent care; Urgent treatment centres; Ambulance; Hospitals; Clinical review of NHS access standards and; Reducing length of stay.
In addition, the programme is working collaboratively to meet the immediate objectives of the Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Shared DHSC/NHSE access to the existing UEC analytical workspace which sits on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) will enable joint analysis to be carried out on data to support work in the UEC area. Analysts will be able to create, collaborate and share their analysis, including topics such as 111, 999, A&E, discharges and others. Use of the data would also enable the programme to provide rapid analysis in response to ministerial and senior official requests and to answer policy questions. Analysis will build a real evidence base on interventions including what works and what doesn’t, a clear narrative on where the problems lie, what the causes are and how improvements can be made. This is particularly important to inform the change programme in the UEC plan, the 10 year health plan and the 3 year UEC strategy.
Only personnel of DHSC or NHS England are eligible to request and/or be given access to the Data.
Specific analyses will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The purpose must be:
1. Aligned to statutory functions of DHSC and / or NHS England; and
2. A collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England; and
3. Required to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs. These needs may arise following engagement with ministers or senior officials within DHSC, No.10, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NHS England (central and regional teams), other NHS organisations, or relevant external stakeholders.
Data cannot be used for purposes outside the scope of the purpose outlined above.
Requests will be submitted to representatives of the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and discussed with representatives from NHS England Data Access & Partnership team and Privacy, Transparency and Trust (PTT). Requests identified where processing will be undertaken as a joint working project will be approved by a senior member of NHS England PTT and the relevant dataset Information Asset Owner (IAO).
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single DPIA that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received. Criteria used to approve include:
- The Directions under which the Data are collected and processed do not include any restrictions which would preclude use by DHSC or for the proposed purpose.
- The IAO is content for access to be provided
- The purpose is aligned to statutory functions of DHSC / NHS England as outlined in this DSA
- The project is collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England
- The project is required for rapid policy analysts to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs.
- The purpose is connected with health and care.
The following steps will be taken to enable joint working/joint access to the data:
1. Identification of in scope project requests:
Representative from the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and NHS England Data Access & Partnerships will maintain a list of project requests and required datasets. This includes a proposed purpose, dataset, outputs and benefits of the use of data. This will identify whether the purpose of the request is aligned to DHSC sole controllership or where processing is a joint working project requiring governance in the form of adding to the joint working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement.
Where it is a joint working project, the DHSC and NHS England representative will liaise with the relevant analytical leads at DHSC and NHS England to determine whether the purpose is for joint working or agency working.
2. Update of the DHSC-NHSE Joint Working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement (NIC-780525-J4L3S)
When it has been agreed that the request is a collaboration or joint working project, NHS England PTT representative will work with the relevant NHS England project lead to update the DPIA with details of the project. This will include purpose of analysis, the dataset of data to be transferred to the NHS England pseudonymised environment, the statutory basis for collection, analysis, processing and dissemination, and proposed benefits of processing. The relevant dataset IAO is required to confirm agreement for access to be provided.
3. Assurance of the Joint Working DPIA and update of the joint working DSA
The DPIA will be reviewed and approved by a senior member of the NHS England PTT. The updated DPIA will be shared with the Data Access Service (DAS) who will update this DSA and released for signature.
4. Access arrangements
The relevant NHSE Data Platform team will be informed by NHS England PTT that the Joint working DPIA has been updated for a particular use case. The DAS will confirm when the DSA has been approved. The NHS England Data Platform team will transfer the Data into the pseudonymised data environment and onboard the approved DHSC / NHS England analysts to do the specified work environment.
Expected output
Elective, Cancer and Diagnostics Analysis: Access to the data will support policy analysis on demand, activity and waiting time between pathways to inform progress on Govt/DHSC priority of reducing the elective waiting list. This data set will be essential in developing future policy on best-timed pathways, as well as monitor progress of the elective reform plan and target live policy issues such as the change in case-mix in the elective waiting list. This dataset will allow further examination of variation in Elective Pathways between trusts due to difference in practice and difference in case-mix. This will enable policy interventions to target specific trusts and specific areas of the pathway and areas to help support the main priority of improving performance on the 18ww target and reducing the waiting list. It will also be used to support spending reviews, allowing for the evidencing of key assumptions underpinning these.
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will be used to understand why unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic. This includes how different categories of spend have changed since the pandemic, in which organisations and in which healthcare resource group (HRG). Analysis at this level of detail is required to identify which unit cost increases have been caused by changes in case-mix, provider mix or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable.
Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
Urgent and Emergency Care team working: The use of the workstation for joint DHSC/NHSE working will allow analysts from both teams the ability to collaborate on projects such as analysing the ambulance dataset (ADS) to enable learning and policy development, as well as allowing delivery of any new requests from UEC stakeholders, giving UEC analysts the ability to prioritise workload across both teams. This could include development of new dashboards within the workstations to allow UEC customers to “self-serve” or less formal responses to ad hoc data requests.
The expected outputs produced for the requested datasets might include:
- Data dashboards;
- Written Reports and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues, and NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Creation of software tools to track metrics within DHSC
- National, regional and provider tables on information relevant to the specific project.
The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following dissemination channels:
- Data dashboards for use within DHSC and NHS England
- Written reports/briefing documents and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Workshops with DHSC officials, Ministers NHS England and other government departments
Written reports/briefing documents and presentations are produced as and when requested. Data Dashboards will be refreshed in line with the refresh frequency of the data underlying them.
The outputs will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.
The expected outputs of the processing will include tables, plot and reports required by each project. For each project, the analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations.
DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v1.2 11 December 2025 to 10 December 2028
- Title
- NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 12
- Files released
- 0
Datasets: Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL; Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL; e-Referral Service - UDAL; Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL; National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL; National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL; Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL; PLICS Aggregate - UDAL; Secondary Uses Service - UDAL; SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL; SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL; Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL
What changed from DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v0.6
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Start date | 2025-12-11 | |
| End date | 2028-12-10 | |
| Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| Secondary Uses Service - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) | |
| e-Referral Service - UDAL: legal basis | Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d) |
Datasets: + National Cost Collection for the NHS (Published) - UDAL; + PLICS Aggregate - UDAL; + Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Pseudo - UDAL; + SUS+ Accident & Emergency (A&E) (Monthly) - UDAL; + SUS+ Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) (Monthly) - UDAL
Objective for processing
[10 paragraphs unchanged] 2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care will undertake analysis of Patient Level Costing Data to understand why non-elective efficiency has reduced since the pandemic. It is a critical issue for the running of the NHS, and is also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England. [24 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected output
Elective, Cancer and Diagnostics Analysis: Access to the data will support policy analysis on demand, activity and waiting time between pathways to inform progress on Govt/DHSC priority of reducing the elective waiting list. This data set will be essential in developing future policy on best-timed pathways, as well as monitor progress of the elective reform plan and target live policy issues such as the change in case-mix in the elective waiting list. This dataset will allow further examination of variation in Elective Pathways between trusts due to difference in practice and difference in case-mix. This will enable policy interventions to target specific trusts and specific areas of the pathway and areas to help support the main priority of improving performance on the 18ww target and reducing the waiting list. It will also be used to support spending reviews, allowing for the evidencing of key assumptions underpinning these. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will be used to understand why unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic. This includes how different categories of spend have changed since the pandemic, in which organisations and in which healthcare resource group (HRG). Analysis at this level of detail is required to identify which unit cost increases have been caused by changes in case-mix, provider mix or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable. Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs. [12 paragraphs unchanged]
Expected measurable benefits
[18 paragraphs unchanged] Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: acting on opportunities for improved productivity derived from the analysis supports the NHS to deliver the target to deliver a 2% year-on-year productivity gain for the next 3 years as set out in the 10 Year Health Plan for England. Increased productivity and efficiency will deliver measurable benefits in terms of more treatments for NHS patients, shorter waiting times for elective care and better provision of emergency care.
Benefits reported
Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.
None yet reported
Unchanged: Processing activities.
Objective for processing
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England require access to NHS England Data to conduct timely analysis in response to ministerial and senior officials. This requirement aligns with the statutory duties of the Secretary of State for Health as outlined in the National Health Service Act 2006. The relevant legislative provisions are:
- DHSC – Secretary of State: section 1A - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
- NHSE – Section 13E - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
The specific analyses required will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The analyses will be undertaken on behalf of DHSC and NHS England by project teams made up of a combination of DHSC and NHS England analysts.
To enable effective joint working, analysts required access to NHSEs pseudonymised data environments, which will be done by creating an area where both DHSC/NHSE colleagues can view and analyse the same data. The datasets will be analysed in line with either of the following models:
• Joint Project – DHSC/NHSE have separate statutory functions as the basis for conducting activities and processing personal data, but those functions are related, and consequently their exercise is aligned. The purposes for processing are jointly determined to achieve this aligned exercise of functions.
• Agency Model - One Party’s statutory or other lawful basis underpins the processing, but the processing may be conducted by employees of both Parties and may involve access to personal data held by one of the Parties. The means the analysis is determined by the Party whose function is being discharged.
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received.
The Data will be used for the following:
1. Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: this will inform delivery of the Elective Reform Plan that sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029. It will also inform development and delivery of the forthcoming cancer plan, which is expected to be published in the Autumn. The analyses will feed into funding decisions, policy development, the transformation of services, operational planning and management, and monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the policies adopted, initiatives taken forward and decisions made will have a stronger evidence base and consequently a greater likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.
2. Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care will undertake analysis of Patient Level Costing Data to understand why non-elective efficiency has reduced since the pandemic. It is a critical issue for the running of the NHS, and is also important for imputing into future financial plans and discussions with Treasury. The same output will be used by both DHSC and NHS England.
Only personnel of DHSC or NHS England are eligible to request and/or be given access to the Data.
Specific analyses will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The purpose must be:
1. Aligned to statutory functions of DHSC and / or NHS England; and
2. A collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England; and
3. Required to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs. These needs may arise following engagement with ministers or senior officials within DHSC, No.10, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NHS England (central and regional teams), other NHS organisations, or relevant external stakeholders.
Data cannot be used for purposes outside the scope of the purpose outlined above.
Requests will be submitted to representatives of the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and discussed with representatives from NHS England Data Access & Partnership team and Privacy, Transparency and Trust (PTT). Requests identified where processing will be undertaken as a joint working project will be approved by a senior member of NHS England PTT and the relevant dataset Information Asset Owner (IAO).
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single DPIA that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received. Criteria used to approve include:
- The Directions under which the Data are collected and processed do not include any restrictions which would preclude use by DHSC or for the proposed purpose.
- The IAO is content for access to be provided
- The purpose is aligned to statutory functions of DHSC / NHS England as outlined in this DSA
- The project is collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England
- The project is required for rapid policy analysts to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs.
- The purpose is connected with health and care.
The following steps will be taken to enable joint working/joint access to the data:
1. Identification of in scope project requests:
Representative from the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and NHS England Data Access & Partnerships will maintain a list of project requests and required datasets. This includes a proposed purpose, dataset, outputs and benefits of the use of data. This will identify whether the purpose of the request is aligned to DHSC sole controllership or where processing is a joint working project requiring governance in the form of adding to the joint working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement.
Where it is a joint working project, the DHSC and NHS England representative will liaise with the relevant analytical leads at DHSC and NHS England to determine whether the purpose is for joint working or agency working.
2. Update of the DHSC-NHSE Joint Working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement (NIC-780525-J4L3S)
When it has been agreed that the request is a collaboration or joint working project, NHS England PTT representative will work with the relevant NHS England project lead to update the DPIA with details of the project. This will include purpose of analysis, the dataset of data to be transferred to the NHS England pseudonymised environment, the statutory basis for collection, analysis, processing and dissemination, and proposed benefits of processing. The relevant dataset IAO is required to confirm agreement for access to be provided.
3. Assurance of the Joint Working DPIA and update of the joint working DSA
The DPIA will be reviewed and approved by a senior member of the NHS England PTT. The updated DPIA will be shared with the Data Access Service (DAS) who will update this DSA and released for signature.
4. Access arrangements
The relevant NHSE Data Platform team will be informed by NHS England PTT that the Joint working DPIA has been updated for a particular use case. The DAS will confirm when the DSA has been approved. The NHS England Data Platform team will transfer the Data into the pseudonymised data environment and onboard the approved DHSC / NHS England analysts to do the specified work environment.
Expected output
Elective, Cancer and Diagnostics Analysis: Access to the data will support policy analysis on demand, activity and waiting time between pathways to inform progress on Govt/DHSC priority of reducing the elective waiting list. This data set will be essential in developing future policy on best-timed pathways, as well as monitor progress of the elective reform plan and target live policy issues such as the change in case-mix in the elective waiting list. This dataset will allow further examination of variation in Elective Pathways between trusts due to difference in practice and difference in case-mix. This will enable policy interventions to target specific trusts and specific areas of the pathway and areas to help support the main priority of improving performance on the 18ww target and reducing the waiting list. It will also be used to support spending reviews, allowing for the evidencing of key assumptions underpinning these.
Urgent and Emergency Care Unit Costs Analysis: Access to the data will be used to understand why unit costs of urgent and emergency care have increased since the pandemic. This includes how different categories of spend have changed since the pandemic, in which organisations and in which healthcare resource group (HRG). Analysis at this level of detail is required to identify which unit cost increases have been caused by changes in case-mix, provider mix or a combination of these, and which are either avoidable or unavoidable.
Outputs of analysis will be presented to policy leads within NHSE and DHSC explaining what categories of spend and types of activities have caused the increase in unit costs.
The expected outputs produced for the requested datasets might include:
- Data dashboards;
- Written Reports and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues, and NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Creation of software tools to track metrics within DHSC
- National, regional and provider tables on information relevant to the specific project.
The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following dissemination channels:
- Data dashboards for use within DHSC and NHS England
- Written reports/briefing documents and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Workshops with DHSC officials, Ministers NHS England and other government departments
Written reports/briefing documents and presentations are produced as and when requested. Data Dashboards will be refreshed in line with the refresh frequency of the data underlying them.
The outputs will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.
The expected outputs of the processing will include tables, plot and reports required by each project. For each project, the analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations.
Benefits reported
None yet reported
DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v0.6 31 October 2025 to 30 October 2028
- Title
- NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 7
- Files released
- 0
Datasets: Cancer Waiting Times - UDAL; Diagnostic Imaging Dataset - UDAL; e-Referral Service - UDAL; Elective Patient Pathway (EPP) - UDAL; National Cancer Registries and Analysis Service (NCRAS) - UDAL; Secondary Uses Service - UDAL; Waiting List Minimum Dataset - UDAL
Objective for processing
The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England require access to NHS England Data to conduct timely analysis in response to ministerial and senior officials. This requirement aligns with the statutory duties of the Secretary of State for Health as outlined in the National Health Service Act 2006. The relevant legislative provisions are:
- DHSC – Secretary of State: section 1A - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
- NHSE – Section 13E - Duty as to improvement in quality of services
The specific analyses required will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The analyses will be undertaken on behalf of DHSC and NHS England by project teams made up of a combination of DHSC and NHS England analysts.
To enable effective joint working, analysts required access to NHSEs pseudonymised data environments, which will be done by creating an area where both DHSC/NHSE colleagues can view and analyse the same data. The datasets will be analysed in line with either of the following models:
• Joint Project – DHSC/NHSE have separate statutory functions as the basis for conducting activities and processing personal data, but those functions are related, and consequently their exercise is aligned. The purposes for processing are jointly determined to achieve this aligned exercise of functions.
• Agency Model - One Party’s statutory or other lawful basis underpins the processing, but the processing may be conducted by employees of both Parties and may involve access to personal data held by one of the Parties. The means the analysis is determined by the Party whose function is being discharged.
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received.
The Data will be used for the following:
1. Elective, cancer and diagnostic (ECD) demand, waits, activity and pathways: this will inform delivery of the Elective Reform Plan that sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029. It will also inform development and delivery of the forthcoming cancer plan, which is expected to be published in the Autumn. The analyses will feed into funding decisions, policy development, the transformation of services, operational planning and management, and monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the policies adopted, initiatives taken forward and decisions made will have a stronger evidence base and consequently a greater likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.
Only personnel of DHSC or NHS England are eligible to request and/or be given access to the Data.
Specific analyses will emerge over time in response to programme and governmental needs. The purpose must be:
1. Aligned to statutory functions of DHSC and / or NHS England; and
2. A collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England; and
3. Required to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs. These needs may arise following engagement with ministers or senior officials within DHSC, No.10, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NHS England (central and regional teams), other NHS organisations, or relevant external stakeholders.
Data cannot be used for purposes outside the scope of the purpose outlined above.
Requests will be submitted to representatives of the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and discussed with representatives from NHS England Data Access & Partnership team and Privacy, Transparency and Trust (PTT). Requests identified where processing will be undertaken as a joint working project will be approved by a senior member of NHS England PTT and the relevant dataset Information Asset Owner (IAO).
Requests for access to enable joint working / joint access to data will be assured via a single DPIA that will be reviewed iteratively as new requests are received. Criteria used to approve include:
- The Directions under which the Data are collected and processed do not include any restrictions which would preclude use by DHSC or for the proposed purpose.
- The IAO is content for access to be provided
- The purpose is aligned to statutory functions of DHSC / NHS England as outlined in this DSA
- The project is collaboration / joint working project between DHSC and NHS England
- The project is required for rapid policy analysts to support programme delivery or meet governmental needs.
- The purpose is connected with health and care.
The following steps will be taken to enable joint working/joint access to the data:
1. Identification of in scope project requests:
Representative from the DHSC Data Access and Platforms team and NHS England Data Access & Partnerships will maintain a list of project requests and required datasets. This includes a proposed purpose, dataset, outputs and benefits of the use of data. This will identify whether the purpose of the request is aligned to DHSC sole controllership or where processing is a joint working project requiring governance in the form of adding to the joint working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement.
Where it is a joint working project, the DHSC and NHS England representative will liaise with the relevant analytical leads at DHSC and NHS England to determine whether the purpose is for joint working or agency working.
2. Update of the DHSC-NHSE Joint Working DPIA and this Data Sharing Agreement (NIC-780525-J4L3S)
When it has been agreed that the request is a collaboration or joint working project, NHS England PTT representative will work with the relevant NHS England project lead to update the DPIA with details of the project. This will include purpose of analysis, the dataset of data to be transferred to the NHS England pseudonymised environment, the statutory basis for collection, analysis, processing and dissemination, and proposed benefits of processing. The relevant dataset IAO is required to confirm agreement for access to be provided.
3. Assurance of the Joint Working DPIA and update of the joint working DSA
The DPIA will be reviewed and approved by a senior member of the NHS England PTT. The updated DPIA will be shared with the Data Access Service (DAS) who will update this DSA and released for signature.
4. Access arrangements
The relevant NHSE Data Platform team will be informed by NHS England PTT that the Joint working DPIA has been updated for a particular use case. The DAS will confirm when the DSA has been approved. The NHS England Data Platform team will transfer the Data into the pseudonymised data environment and onboard the approved DHSC / NHS England analysts to do the specified work environment.
Expected output
The expected outputs produced for the requested datasets might include:
- Data dashboards;
- Written Reports and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues, and NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Creation of software tools to track metrics within DHSC
- National, regional and provider tables on information relevant to the specific project.
The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following dissemination channels:
- Data dashboards for use within DHSC and NHS England
- Written reports/briefing documents and presentations to DHSC senior officials, Ministers, policy colleagues NHS England, No.10 and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT)
- Workshops with DHSC officials, Ministers NHS England and other government departments
Written reports/briefing documents and presentations are produced as and when requested. Data Dashboards will be refreshed in line with the refresh frequency of the data underlying them.
The outputs will not contain disclosive NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.
The expected outputs of the processing will include tables, plot and reports required by each project. For each project, the analytical approach, progress and draft outputs will be reviewed by senior analysts from the two organisations.
Benefits reported
Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.
Register history
When this agreement appeared in, or was edited in, each monthly edition of the register. Built by comparing every edition this site holds.
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November 2025 —
first listed. 1 version: DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v0.6
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January 2026
2 versions added: DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v1.2, DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v2.2
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April 2026
1 version added: DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v3.2
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August 2026
1 version added: DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S-v4.4
Cite this page
NHS England (2026) Data Uses Register, September 2026 edition, agreement DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S, “NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care – joint working in pseudonymised data environments”. Read via NHS Data Access Explorer (unofficial), https://healthdatauses.uk/agreements/dars-nic-780525-j4l3s/ (accessed [date]).
This address stays the same, but the page is rebuilt with each monthly edition, so the citation names the edition it shows. Every edition's data is kept in the facts store.
Source: datausesregister_september2026.xlsx, September 2026 edition of the NHS England Data Uses Register. Search that workbook for DARS-NIC-780525-J4L3S to see the original rows.