NRS Indexing Team

The NRS Indexing Team provides the trusted third party indexing service enabling data to be de-identified for data linkage in Scotland in collaboration with our delivery partners PHS(eDRIS) and EPCC.

For research projects that require data linkage, indexing is the process of matching available personal identifiers from a dataset to a population spine and returning an anonymised unique person identifier specific to the project.  More information on this process is illustrated in this diagram.

NRS is committed to protecting the data it receives and processes, and robust information governance and security measures are in place to ensure this.

NRS are working with with Research Data Scotland and ADR Scotland, a partnership between Scottish Government and the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, to enhance administrative data access, linkage and innovation in Scotland and enable policy-relevant research for the public good. 

Contact:

For more information about the NRS Indexing Service, please contact [email protected]

Links:

ADR Scotland page - https://www.adruk.org/about-us/our-partnership/adr-scotland/

eDRIS - ISD Services | Electronic Data Research and Innovation Service (eDRIS) | Research Proposal | ISD Scotland

EPCC - NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) national safe haven | EPCC at The University of Edinburgh

Research Data Scotland - Homepage | Research Development Scotland (researchdata.scot)

Joined-up data for better decisions: Guiding Principles for Data Linkage

Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research - https://www.scadr.ac.uk/