Files released over time

NHS England's Data Access Request Service (DARS) releases data to the organisations holding agreements as files. The register records each file and the month it went out. This page counts them by month.

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.

Agreements receiving files in August 2026

211

Files released in August 2026

745

Agreements with any file recorded

983 of 1,950

The steadier measure. An agreement counts once in a month however many files it received.

A few agreements receive files in bulk: 60% of files went to the 100 agreements that received the most. A spike in files is usually a handful of agreements, which is why agreements are charted first. The busiest month was September 2021, with 2,805 files to 243 agreements.

What these charts count

• Files released externally by DARS, by the month of release, under the agreements listed in the September 2026 edition. A file can hold a little data or a great deal, so counting files does not measure volume. Access granted in NHS England's own systems, such as its Secure Data Environment, is not included, so an agreement with no files recorded may still have had access to data.
• They start in January 2020. Before then the register's records are sparse: it lists 1,727 files released from April 2016 to the end of 2018, and through 2019 the agreements receiving files each month rise from 28 in January 2019 to 175 in December 2019. Why is not known, so those months are left out of the charts rather than read as a rise in sharing. They are in the table below.
• The last month is as complete as the others. The register reports 99% of files in the edition published the month after they were released, so August 2026 is not a partial month.
• Onward sharing is not recorded. 91 agreements permit the recipient to pass data on; nothing passed on appears here.
• Agreements no longer in the register are not counted, though their files are on their own pages.