Access to Patient Demographics

Dear Department of Health,

Please could you provide me with the following information:

1) How many users currently have access to the Personal
Demographics Service, and therefore are able to look up the contact
details of anyone not flagged as 'sensitive', regardless of whether
or not they have a clinical, business or other justifiable reason?

2) How many users is it envisaged will have access to the PDS when
it and the Summary Care Record and other connected or associated
facilities are fully rolled out?

3) How many users had direct access (i.e. able to access the
information themselves without the need to go through someone else)
to similar or the same contact information i.e. their addresses,
about all patients in England, prior to the existance of the PDS?

4) How many PDS records currently exist, and how many of those are
currently flagged as 'sensitive'?

5) How many of those currently existing PDS records are for those
under 16, and how many of them are flagged as 'sensitive'?

6) How many patients are currently 'opted-out' of having a Summary
Care Record (or have had others opt them out on their behalf, e.g.
parents for children), and out of these patients, how many have
also had their PDS flagged as 'sensitive'?

7) And out of the number of SCR opted-out patients, how many are
under 16, and how many of those are also flagged as 'sensitive' on
the PDS?

Yours faithfully,

Mr Rawlins

Dear Department of Health,

Thank you for your response, it is very informative and useful. May
I be a nuisance and add another couple of questions relating to
this issue -

1) How many smartcard holders would be able to view a patient's
demographic details if their record was set to sensitive;

2) Would setting a patient's PDS record to sensitive also prevent
various organisations from uploading demographic data during
en-masse exercises to other organisations?

Yours faithfully,

Mr Rawlins