The NHS has to date been able to receive address information via the NHS Digital Mapping Agreement in the form of OS MasterMap® Address Layer 2. This agreement will continue until April 2012, until which point they can still receive this data, with the ability to migrate across to the AddressBase products at any point before this.   Instead of Address Layer 2, many NHS systems make use of PAF® from the Royal Mail, which, unlike the AddressBase products, comes with licensing costs.

Both Address Layer 2 and PAF® will form constituents parts of the AddressBase products, so whichever is currently being use, the AddressBase products will provide something better, and in the case of PAF, significantly cheaper.

The NHS will gain tremendously from using the AddressBase products as they will be used across the public sector, making joined up working far easier. This will be facilitated through the use of the UPRN (unique property reference number), that will act as a definitive linking mechanism, not only between NHS departments, but also across all public sector organisations, including the ambulance service and social services.

There are numerous systems in the NHS that will make use of the AddressBase products, chief amongst them the Patient Administration Systems (PAS) used to record patient information and to track appointments.

Web services

Via the use of Symphony SinglePoint the Patient Administration Systems (PAS) can access the AddressBase products and with that collate contact details of new patients and validate the addresses of existing ones. Because the AddressBase products are built from local authority data, is it by far the most accurate address data available, which means its use will see a significant reduction in the errors caused through the use of existing datasets.

Symphony SinglePoint is fully customisable and makes the complexity of the AddressBase products easy for the NHS. Whether linking through the UPRN or a using a simple postcode look up, Symphony SinglePoint make the AddressBase products a reality.

In addition to the Patient Administration Systems (PAS), systems used in human resources and finance can also benefit from the AddressBase products. By using Symphony SinglePoint, the data is all accessed from a central location, removing the need for separate deployments, which in turn saves on infrastructure costs.