To achieve full conformance with the Safer Practice Notice and Information Standards NHS organisations should undertake training and deliver structured communication to staff and patients. The objective is to raise awareness of the NHS Number using consistent messages and standard materials.

It is essential for all healthcare administrative and clerical staff to use the NHS Number correctly. Instructions for its use should therefore be incorporated appropriately into the training of all administrative, clerical, medical, clinical, nursing and other health staff.

This should include training to ensure that patients are asked for their NHS Number, where possible, alongside other key demographic information, in order to reduce the generation of duplicate records.

This section describes the training available to support NHS Number use for Spine compliant and non-Spine compliant systems. There are also some documents to support training activity for the NHS Number Information standard. 

• NHS Numbers Training Strategy (from NHS North East Essex) (PDF 47Kb)
• NHS Number Standard Training Review Log (from IG Toolkit) (XLS 19Kb)

Training hints and tips

The following points provide some key training hints & tips for the NHS Number and data quality:

• Make NHS Number training material competency based.
• Test the user's knowledge after training; if they do not reach a designated pass mark the user should not receive system access and functionality.
• Test results should be highlighted to the user's manager to ensure they can organise their department without them (until they reach the desired competency).

One Foundation Trust recommends looking at data quality errors across the Trust and using these to target training. Real examples of the implications of data quality issues i.e. Trust/department nearly lost '£xxx', caused by 'yyy', this can help to raise the priority of training and in turn improve data quality.

Spine/PDS Compliant Systems

For organisations using Spine-compliant systems it is recommended that users follow an e-learning course which provides a high level theoretical awareness of what the PDS is and how it is used, learning to an improved understanding of the PDS and better usage of demographic data through clinical applications. One Trust also developed guidance on how to use the PDS e-learning.

• PDS e-learning
• Guidance on using PDS e-learning (from NHS North East Essex) (PDF 265Kb)

More generic guidance is available on the Human Behaviour & Business Process Requirements pages which may be incorporated into local training strategies/plans.

Specific guidance on tracing and NHS Number allocation specific to your local system should be sought from your system suppliers i.e. training manuals.  Where necessary, Trusts may also request specific training from suppliers.  Your data quality team may also be able to provide support and guidance on NHS Number and data quality related training.

Non Spine-compliant systems

For organisations that use stand alone systems (non-Spine compliant), specific guidance on tracing and NHS Number allocation should be sought from your local system supplier i.e. training manuals.

Where necessary, trusts may also request specific training from suppliers.  Your data quality team may also be able to provide support and guidance on NHS Number and data quality related training.

More generic guidance is available in the Human Behaviour & Business Process Requirements pages which may be incorporated into local training strategies/plans.