DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8697-3
title: National Child Development Study: Linked Health Administrative Datasets (Hospital Episode Statistics), England, 1997-2023: Secure Access
title: National Child Development Study, 1958 - Linked Administrative Data
title: NCDS; HES

description: &lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study&lt;/span&gt; (NCDS) is a continuing longitudinal study that seeks to follow the lives of all those living in Great Britain who were born in one particular week in 1958. The aim of the study is to improve understanding of the factors affecting human development over the whole lifespan. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The NCDS has its origins in the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Perinatal Mortality Survey&lt;/span&gt; (PMS) (the original PMS study is held at the UK Data Archive under SN 2137). This study was sponsored by the National Birthday Trust Fund and designed to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early infancy among the 17,000 children born in England, Scotland and Wales in that one week. Selected data from the PMS form NCDS sweep 0, held alongside NCDS sweeps 1-3, under SN 5565. &lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;br&gt;Survey and Biomeasures Data (GN 33004):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;To date there have been ten attempts to trace all members of the birth cohort in order to monitor their physical, educational and social development. The first three sweeps were carried out by the National Children's Bureau, in 1965, when respondents were aged 7, in 1969, aged 11, and in 1974, aged 16 (these sweeps form NCDS1-3, held together with NCDS0 under SN 5565). The fourth sweep, also carried out by the National Children's Bureau, was conducted in 1981, when respondents were aged 23 (held under SN 5566). In 1985 the NCDS moved to the Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU) - now known as the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS). The fifth sweep was carried out in 1991, when respondents were aged 33 (held under SN 5567). For the sixth sweep, conducted in 1999-2000, when respondents were aged 42 (NCDS6, held under SN 5578), fieldwork was combined with the 1999-2000 wave of the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;1970 Birth Cohort Study&lt;/span&gt; (BCS70), which was also conducted by CLS (and held under GN 33229). The seventh sweep was conducted in 2004-2005 when the respondents were aged 46 (held under SN 5579), the eighth sweep was conducted in 2008-2009 when respondents were aged 50 (held under SN 6137), the ninth sweep was conducted in 2013 when respondents were aged 55 (held under SN 7669), and the tenth sweep was conducted in 2020-24 when the respondents were aged 60-64 (held under SN 9412). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Secure Access&lt;/span&gt; version of the NCDS is available under SN 9413, containing detailed sensitive variables not available under Safeguarded access (currently only sweep 10 data). Variables include uncommon health conditions (including age at diagnosis), full employment codes and income/finance details, and specific life circumstances (e.g. pregnancy details, year/age of emigration from GB).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Four separate datasets covering responses to NCDS over all sweeps are available. &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Deaths Dataset: Special Licence Access&lt;/span&gt; (SN 7717) covers deaths; &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study Response and Outcomes Dataset&lt;/span&gt; (SN 5560) covers all other responses and outcomes; &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Partnership Histories&lt;/span&gt; (SN 6940) includes data on live-in relationships; and &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Activity Histories&lt;/span&gt; (SN 6942) covers work and non-work activities. Users are advised to order these studies alongside the other waves of NCDS.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;From 2002-2004, a Biomedical Survey was completed and is available under Safeguarded Licence (SN 8731) and Special Licence (SL) (SN 5594). Proteomics analyses of blood samples are available under SL SN 9254.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Geographical Data (GN 33497): &lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of geographical variables are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Administrative Data (GN 33396):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of linked administrative datasets are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies. These include a &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Deaths&lt;/span&gt; dataset (SN 7717) available under SL and the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Health Administrative Datasets&lt;/span&gt; (SN 8697) available under Secure Access.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Multi-omics Data and Risk Scores Data (GN 33592)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Proteomics analyses were run on the blood samples collected from NCDS participants in 2002-2004 and are available under SL SN 9254.  Metabolomics analyses were conducted on respondents of sweep 10 and are available under SL SN 9411. Polygenic indices are available under SL SN 9439. Derived summary scores have been created that combine the estimated effects of many different genes on a specific trait or characteristic, such as a person's risk of Alzheimer's disease, asthma, substance abuse, or mental health disorders, for example. These scores can be combined with existing survey data to offer a more nuanced understanding of how cohort members' outcomes may be shaped.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Additional Sub-Studies (GN 33562):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;In addition to the main NCDS sweeps, further studies have also been conducted on a range of subjects such as parent migration, unemployment, behavioural studies and respondent essays. The full list of NCDS studies available from the UK Data Service can be found on the &lt;a href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/series/series?id=2000032#!/access-data" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;NCDS&lt;/a&gt; series access data webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For information on how to access biomedical data from NCDS that are not held at the UKDS, see the &lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/data-access-training/genetic-data-and-biological-samples/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;CLS Genetic data and biological samples&lt;/a&gt; webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Further information about the full NCDS series can be found on the &lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/1958-national-child-development-study/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Centre for Longitudinal Studies&lt;/a&gt; website.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;span&gt;N&lt;span&gt;ational Child Development Study: Linked Health Administrative Datasets (Hospital Episode Statistics), England, 1997-2023: Secure Access&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; includes data files from the NHS Digital HES database for those cohort members who provided consent to health data linkage in the Age 50 sweep. The HES database contains information about all hospital admissions in England. The following linked HES data are available:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;1)&lt;span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;Accident and Emergency (A&amp;E) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;The A&amp;E dataset details each attendance to an Accident and Emergency care facility in England, between 01-04-2007 and 31-03-2020 (inclusive). It includes major A&amp;E departments, single speciality A&amp;E departments, minor injury units and walk-in centres in England.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;2) Admitted Patient Care (APC)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;The APC data summarises episodes of care for admitted patients, where the episode occurred between 01-04-1997 and 31-03-2023 (inclusive).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;3) Critical Care (CC) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;The CC dataset covers records of critical care activity between 01-04-2009 and 31-03-2023 (inclusive).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;4) Out Patient (OP) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;The OP dataset lists the outpatient appointments between 01-04-2003 and 31-03-2023 (inclusive).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;5) Emergency Care Dataset (ECDS)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span&gt;The ECDS lists the emergency care appointments between 01-04-2020 and 31-03-2023 (inclusive).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;6) Consent data&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;The consents dataset describes consent to linkage, and is current at the time of deposit.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;CLS/ NHS Digital Sub-licence agreement &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;NHS Digital has given CLS permission for onward sharing of the NCDS/HES dataset via the UKDS Secure Lab. In order to ensure data minimisation, NHS Digital requires that researchers only access the HES variables needed for their approved research project. Therefore, the HES linked data provided by the UKDS to approved researchers will be subject to sub-setting of variables. The researcher will need to request a specific sub-set of variables from the NCDS/HES data dictionary, which will subsequently be made available within their UKDS Secure Account. Once the researcher has finished their research, the UKDS will delete the tailored dataset for that specific project. Any party wishing to access the data deposited at the UK Data Service will be required to enter into a Licence agreement with CLS (UCL), in addition to the agreements signed with the UKDS, provided in the application pack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;CLS Hospital Episode Statistics data access update July 2025&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;From March 2027, HES data linked to all four CLS studies will no longer be available via the UK Data Service. For projects ending before March 2027, uses should continue to apply via UKDS. However, if access to a wider range of linked Longitudinal Population Studies data is needed, &lt;a href="https://ukllc.ac.uk/" target="_blank"&gt;UKLLC&lt;/a&gt; might be more suitable. For projects ending after March 2027, users must &lt;a href="https://ukllc.ac.uk/apply" target="_blank"&gt;apply via UKLLC&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For the third edition (April 2025), the data have been updated to include linked data for the financial years 2017-2022. In addition, a new dataset for Emergency Care (ECDS) episodes has been added, along with a dataset detailing the consent for linkage. Furthermore, the study documentation has also been updated.&lt;/p&gt;