NHS datasets

Publisher, licence, what we store, what we leave out, and how a row attaches. Counts are live. The national PFI file is not loaded.

Four index cards labelled ODS, spend over £25k, TAC and contract register, joined by a vertical rule marked join key ODS code. Invented trust Northvale Health and invented code RXX1. — An organisation code, then the files attached to it. Click to enlarge.

NHS England

Organisation Data Service

What it is: A national list for England: ODS code, name, status, kind, and related geography fields. Used as the join key for the other NHS tables.
Licence: Open Government Licence ODS reference data is published under the OGL. We do not load Caldicott Guardian or OC1 contact files.
What we leave out: Not a clinical record. Not every kind of row becomes a tracked source. GP, dental and pharmacy lists are not treated as document sources.
How it attaches: The ODS code is the key. A source is attached only when a public papers page is confirmed. Directory-only rows stay off the public Sources list.
Refresh: When a new official ODS extract is loaded. Not a nightly crawl of every code.
In Documents: No
Count: 53,441
Active trusts and care trusts: 228
Integrated care boards: 36
ODS rows joined to a tracked source: 256

Official source

NHS Business Services Authority

Spend over £25,000

What it is: Individual invoices, payments or other transactions over £25,000. The first load is NHSBSA as payer (ODS T1450). Trust-level files are a separate catalogue and are not claimed as complete.
Licence: Open Government Licence Monthly transparency CSVs on the NHSBSA site and data.gov.uk.
What we leave out: Payroll lines and rows that name a person are dropped. We do not invent a Companies House number. The NHSBSA files loaded here have no company-number column.
How it attaches: Paying body ODS code. Supplier name is stored as published. Name-only matches are not counted as company joins.
Refresh: When new monthly NHSBSA CSVs are loaded. Trust catalogues refresh separately, if at all.
In Documents: No
Count: 1,009,992
Spend rows with a company number: 0

Official source

NHS England

Trust Accounts Consolidation

What it is: Annual figures that providers put in their audited accounts: income, expenditure, surplus or deficit, net assets, and a small line set for PFI, consultancy and related parties. Values stored in pounds. Illustrative codebooks are not stored as facts.
Licence: Open Government Licence The published TAC files make local provider accounts easier to locate. File totals can differ from the consolidated NHS provider accounts because consolidation adjustments are not all included.
What we leave out: Not the parliamentary consolidated accounts. Not every TAC line in the source workbooks. Not a finding about a named board.
How it attaches: Provider code mapped to an ODS code. A tracked source is attached where one exists.
Refresh: When NHS England publishes a new financial year.
In Documents: No
Count: 1,284
TAC years with an ODS code: 1,284

Official source

NHS Business Services Authority

NHSBSA contract register

What it is: Quarterly snapshots from the Atamis procurement application: supplier, dates, award value, category, and a Contracts Finder notice URL where one is present. Contracts, not invoices. Commercial Pipeline is not loaded.
Licence: Open Government Licence Subject to NHSBSA copyright. Reuse must include the statement NHSBSA Copyright 2025. Third-party content in the file may need a separate permission.
What we leave out: Not mixed with spend rows. Not treated as a complete NHS procurement graph.
How it attaches: ODS code T1450 for NHSBSA. Company numbers are stored only when the file contains them. Contracts Finder OCIDs are joined where the notice URL matches a notice we already hold.
Refresh: When a new quarterly CSV is published on the Open Data Portal.
In Documents: No
Count: 601
Contract rows with a company number: 0

Official source

Individual NHS trusts and ICBs

Board papers

What it is: Agendas, minutes and board packs from a tracked trust or ICB website. Once tracked, they sit in the same document corpus as councils.
Licence: Source copyright Each pack remains the copyright of the body that published it.
What we leave out: No patient attachments. An organisation on the directory is not a source until it has a public papers page.
How it attaches: The tracked source, then the ODS code on that source.
Refresh: On the same schedule as other tracked websites.
In Documents: No
Count: 153

Publisher page on Institrace

HM Treasury / Department of Health and Social Care

PFI and PF2 register

What it is: Not loaded. A national file may be held on disk for a later pass.
Licence: Check on load Not in the product. Do not treat local files as live holdings.
What we leave out: No public page, no join, no count.
How it attaches: None until the file is in the product.
Refresh: Not scheduled.
In Documents: No

NHS questions

Which NHS bodies do you track?

The Organisation Data Service list for England is held as a directory: trusts, care trusts, integrated care boards, and other organisation kinds in that pack. Tracked document sources are trusts and ICBs with a confirmed board-papers page. We do not treat GP practices, dental contractors or pharmacies as document sources. Independent-sector and care-home rows can appear in the directory without being a source we collect papers from.

Tracked NHS sourcesNHS datasets

What is an ODS code?

An Organisation Data Service code is the national identifier for a health or care organisation in England. NHS England publishes the list under the Open Government Licence. Institrace uses that code as the join between the directory, invoices, TAC years, the NHSBSA contract register, and a tracked source. The display name is not the join.

The code is the joinNHS intelligence

Why are most ODS rows not sources?

A directory row is not a website. Most codes stay directory-only until a papers URL is confirmed. Stub rows are not activated and do not appear on the public Sources list. That keeps the catalogue honest.

NHS sources

How do you join a supplier to a board member?

Only when a company number is present in the file, or when another published identifier already links the rows. The NHSBSA invoice CSVs loaded here have no company-number column. Those payments are not turned into Companies House joins by name search. Board members join through officer filings on a tracked body, not through a guessed supplier name.

Join method by datasetPeople and entities

What do you skip in spend files?

Payroll lines and rows that name a person. Invalid rows. The rest is stored as published invoice data for the paying body in that file. NHSBSA monthly CSVs are payments by NHSBSA (ODS T1450), not a complete map of every English trust. Trust-level catalogues are a separate feed and are not claimed as complete.

NHSBSA spend notes

Do you hold Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland health bodies?

Not as an ODS-equivalent directory. England is the current NHS pack. Public papers from a named health body outside England appear only if that body is a tracked source in the document index.

SourcesWhat we hold on the NHS

Full FAQ

NHS intelligence What we hold on the NHS Tracked NHS sources Ethics