Primary Care Registration Management
Primary Care Registration Management (PCRM) is a back-end service that enables patients to register with a GP practice.
About this service
Primary Care Registration Management (PCRM) is a back-end service that enables patients to register with a GP practice and thus access GP services.
It provides a way for the patient's GP registration to be co-ordinated amongst:
- the patient's new GP system
- the patient's old GP system
- the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) - the national service that holds the patient's demographic details, including their address and registered GP
It works alongside the following other GP registration services:
- Register with a GP surgery - for patients to register with a GP online
- GP2GP - for transferring the patient's GP record from the old GP to the new GP
As well as handling GP registration, PCRM also:
- allows GP systems to update the patient's address in PDS
- supports the 'capitation' GP payments process by providing details of registered GPs to Primary Care Support England.
NHAIS replacement
PCRM replaced the GP registrations elements of National Health Application and Infrastructure Services (NHAIS) in 2024.
Who this service is for
PCRM is a back-end service - nobody uses it directly. Rather, it is used by GP systems as part of the GP registration process.
PCRM is used across the whole of England, Wales, Isle of Man and the Defence Medical Services (DMS).
National usage policy
PCRM is mandatory for all GP systems in England, and is supported by our legal directions.
Benefits
- a single, national process for managing GP registrations
- integrated with PDS to give a single source of truth for patient's address and registered GP
How this service works
Address updates
GP systems can send patient address updates to PCRM via NHAIS GP Links. PCRM then forwards the address update to PDS.
Data quality and exceptions
If PCRM isn't able to process a request automatically for some reason, it marks it for manual attention.
Such cases are resolved by the the relevant Primary Care Support team using the Demographic Spine Application (DSA). For example, cases in England are handled by Primary Care Support England.
GP payments
PCRM generates reports on patients' registered GPs and sends them to Primary Care Support England via MESH.
Status, service level and current usage
How to access this service
To integrate a GP system with PCRM, use the NHAIS GP Links integration.
Contact us
The following table shows how to contact us about this service.
| Enquiry | Point of contact |
|---|---|
| Live service incident |
National Service Desk Email: [email protected] |
| General enquiries about the service |
Enquiries team Email: [email protected] |
| Strategic direction of the service |
Tristan Stanton (service owner) Email: [email protected] |
| Escalations |
Stephen Koch (senior responsible officer) Email: [email protected] |
Last edited: 5 May 2026 11:32 am