# UK Digital Healthcare Legal Requirements

> What information healthcare and social care organisations must legally send digitally or make digitally available across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Publicly funded healthcare is primary; private healthcare is compared. Individual care receives the most attention, with planning, research and public health also in scope. Baseline: 3 November 2026.

## Start here

- [Digital requirements register](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/digital-requirements/index.md): information, sender, recipient, method/standard, deadline, authority and applicability for each obligation.
- [How to read a requirement](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/requirements/index.md): distinguish binding statutory and contractual duties from saved have-regard standards, administrative mandates, guidance and operational services.
- [Legal framework](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/legal-framework/index.md): authority, confidentiality, data protection and territorial limits.
- [Four-nation comparison](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/comparison/index.md): national and public/private applicability.
- [SCR and equivalent records](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/examples/summary-care-records/index.md): uploading, retrieving and viewing summary information are separate duties.
- [Blood tests and results](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/examples/blood-tests-results/index.md): distinguish requests, reporting, patient access and public-health notification.
- [Hospital discharge](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/examples/hospital-discharge/index.md): digital handover to GP, community healthcare and social care.
- [Capacity and representation](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/examples/capacity-and-representation/index.md): adult capacity, children and the actual authority for care, disclosure or proxy access.
- [Planning, research and public health](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/context/other-purposes/index.md): separate purposes and their applicable collection, disclosure and access routes.
- [Agent entry](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/llm-wiki/index.md): authority, read order and maintenance rules.
- [Sources](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/sources/index.md): 268 registered authority records.
- [Evidence matrix](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/evidence-matrix/index.md): supported conclusions and limits.
- [Validation queue](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/validation-queue/index.md): unresolved instruments, contracts, implementation and source gaps.

Canonical Markdown and registered sources retain authority. Generated HTML, graphs and conversational summaries create no new legal evidence. A service or standard is not automatically a digital mandate. Unseen local contracts remain unknown. The catalogue does not certify an organisation or establish that every possible obligation has been resolved.

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- [Required service reports](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/national-service-reports/index.md): Four national examples, with plain-language definitions, timing, legal force and private-provider coverage.

- [Terms and abbreviations](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/glossary/index.md): Plain definitions supporting the board-first reading journey.

- [Protection detail](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/topics/protection-and-safeguarding/index.md): statutory sharing, digital system use and national/provider boundaries.
- [Protection catalogue](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/protection-requirements/index.md): exact assessed protection exchanges.
- [Protection examples](https://uk-digital-healthcare-legal-requirements.pages.dev/examples/protection-sharing/index.md): child/adult protection concerns at any point in care; hospital discharge is one worked setting for cross-agency sharing.