UK NHS Providers Scraper — ODS Organisation Registry

Search the official NHS Organisation Data Service (ODS) registry of UK healthcare providers — GP practices, pharmacies, dental practices, NHS trusts, hospices, care homes and more. Official open-data API, no login, no proxies, no HTML parsing.

What NHS provider data does this scraper extract?

One flat JSON record per organisation:

Field	Meaning
odsCode	Official ODS organisation code (e.g. L81008)
name	Registered organisation name
status	Active / Inactive
primaryRoleId / primaryRoleDescription	Provider type (e.g. GP practice, pharmacy)
postCode	Registered postcode
lastChangeDate	Last registry change (useful for incremental syncs)
orgLink	Canonical registry URL for the organisation

With Include full details (or in detail mode) each record adds:

Field	Meaning
addressLine1/2, town, county, country, uprn	Full registered address
phone, website	Registered contacts where provided
roles	All ODS roles with names, primary flag and status
relationships	Organisation-hierarchy links — [{relTypeId, relTypeName, targetOdsCode, targetName}] (e.g. an NHS trust site "IS OPERATED BY" its parent trust). targetName is null by default — the registry doesn't embed the target's display name in the relationship payload. Turn on Resolve relationship target names (includeRelationshipNames) to fill it in (one extra API call per unique related org)
operationalStart/End, legalStart/End	Operational and legal dates

Optional enrichments

Enrichment	Adds	Turn on with
Add lat/long geocoding	latitude, longitude — the organisation's postcode geocoded via the free, open postcodes.io service (Ordnance Survey / ONS open data). null when a postcode can't be resolved. Works in search or detail mode.	includeGeo: true
Resolve relationship target names	Fills relationships[].targetName with each related organisation's registered name (e.g. the parent NHS trust). Needs detail data — detail mode, or includeDetails: true in search mode.	includeRelationshipNames: true

With Only new since last run enabled, every returned record also carries isNew: true.

How to scrape NHS providers with this Actor

1. Pick a mode: search (filters below) or detail (pass odsCodes).
2. In search mode set at least one filter: name, postCode (full or partial, e.g. BS1), providerType (GP practice, pharmacy, dental, NHS trust, hospice, care home, …), roleId (any official role code), lastChangeDate for a one-off incremental sync, or onlyNewSinceLastRun for automatic incremental syncs across scheduled runs.
3. Run and export JSON, CSV or Excel — or call it over the API:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("nomad-agent/uk-nhs-ods-providers-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "search",
    "postCode": "BS1",
    "providerType": "pharmacy",
    "includeDetails": True,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["odsCode"], "|", item["name"], item["postCode"])

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nomad-agent~uk-nhs-ods-providers-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "search", "postCode": "BS1", "providerType": "gp_practice"}'

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search queries the registry with the filters below; detail fetches full records for the ODS codes in odsCodes.
name	string	–	Case-insensitive substring match on the organisation name.
postCode	string	(prefilled BS1 in Console)	Full or partial UK postcode; prefix match on the registered address.
providerType	select	any	Common provider types mapped to official ODS role codes (GP practice, pharmacy, dental, NHS trust, NHS trust site, hospice, care home, optical site, independent provider, branch surgery).
specialty	string	–	Free-text specialty (e.g. pharmacy, hospice, dental), matched against the ODS role vocabulary. Ignored if providerType (non-any) or roleId is set.
roleId	string	–	Any official ODS role code (advanced) — overrides providerType and specialty.
status	select	active	active, inactive, or all.
lastChangeDate	string (YYYY-MM-DD, datepicker)	–	Only organisations changed on or after this date. The registry rejects dates more than ~185 days in the past (HTTP 406).
onlyNewSinceLastRun	boolean	false	Search only organisations changed since this Actor's own last successful run (server-side, via the registry's LastChangeDate filter). Overrides lastChangeDate once a prior run exists. Search mode only. Tags every record isNew: true.
odsCodes	array	–	ODS codes to fetch in detail mode (e.g. L81008, RA7, FLM49).
includeDetails	boolean	false	In search mode, enrich every hit with the full registry record — one extra API call per organisation.
includeGeo	boolean	false	Add latitude/longitude by geocoding each postcode via the free postcodes.io service. Best-effort — unresolved postcodes return null.
includeRelationshipNames	boolean	false	Resolve relationships[].targetName (needs detail data) — one extra API call per unique related organisation.
maxItems	integer	100	Hard cap on organisations returned. Each result is billed, so start low and raise once your filter is dialed in. 0 = no cap.
concurrency	integer	8	(Advanced) Parallel detail-record fetches (detail mode / includeDetails), 1–16.

Output example

Search mode (includeDetails: false):

{
  "odsCode": "L81008",
  "name": "SHIREHAMPTON GROUP PRACTICE",
  "status": "Active",
  "primaryRoleId": "RO177",
  "primaryRoleDescription": "PRESCRIBING COST CENTRE",
  "postCode": "BS11 9SB",
  "orgRecordClass": "RC1",
  "lastChangeDate": "2024-07-15",
  "orgLink": "https://directory.spineservices.nhs.uk/ORD/2-0-0/organisations/L81008",
  "source": "nhs-ods"
}

Detail mode / includeDetails: true — a real NHS trust site, showing the relationships link back to its parent trust:

{
  "odsCode": "A0A1E",
  "name": "CAMHS - ADASH",
  "status": "Active",
  "primaryRoleId": "RO198",
  "primaryRoleDescription": "NHS TRUST SITE",
  "postCode": "AL10 8HR",
  "orgRecordClass": "RC2",
  "lastChangeDate": "2024-05-08",
  "orgLink": "https://directory.spineservices.nhs.uk/ORD/2-0-0/organisations/A0A1E",
  "source": "nhs-ods",
  "addressLine1": "DOWNS FARM CENTRE",
  "town": "HATFIELD",
  "country": "ENGLAND",
  "roles": [
    {"id": "RO198", "name": "NHS TRUST SITE", "primary": true, "status": "Active"},
    {"id": "RO31", "name": "PPA EPACT SYSTEM", "primary": false, "status": "Active"}
  ],
  "relationships": [
    {"relTypeId": "RE6", "relTypeName": "IS OPERATED BY", "targetOdsCode": "RWR", "targetName": null}
  ],
  "operationalStart": "2024-03-22"
}

Integrations

Every run's results are available as a dataset you can export as JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), or query straight from the API with run-sync-get-dataset-items. Wire it into Make, Zapier, or n8n via their native Apify integrations, or drive it programmatically through the Apify MCP server so an LLM agent can call this Actor as a tool.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.05 per Actor start and $0.004 per organisation returned. 100 providers ≈ $0.45. No subscription — pay only for what you fetch.

Use cases

• Healthcare lead generation: every pharmacy, GP practice or dental practice in a region, with addresses and phone numbers
• Master-data / CRM enrichment keyed on official ODS codes
• Incremental registry syncs via lastChangeDate, or automatically on a schedule via onlyNewSinceLastRun
• Health-tech integrations that need canonical NHS organisation reference data
• Market analysis of UK primary care, community pharmacy and independent providers
• Mapping organisational hierarchy (e.g. which trust operates which site) via the relationships field (with includeRelationshipNames for resolved names)
• Geospatial analysis and mapping via optional latitude/longitude geocoding (includeGeo)

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape NHS ODS data? Yes. The ORD API is the official, public, unauthenticated open-data API of NHS England's Organisation Data Service, and the data is published under the Open Government Licence v3 — free to use, including commercially, with attribution ("Contains information from NHS England, licenced under the current version of the Open Government Licence").

Do I need an API key or login? No. The ORD API requires no authentication of any kind.

Which countries does it cover? Primarily England (plus border/cross-registered organisations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where they hold ODS codes).

Why does a GP practice show PRESCRIBING COST CENTRE as its primary role? That is how ODS models GP practices — the primary role is RO177 with RO76 (GP PRACTICE) as a non-primary role. Filtering by the "GP practice" provider type handles this for you.

What if an ODS code isn't found? It is logged and skipped — the run continues with the other codes.

How fresh is the data? Every run hits the live registry API. No caching layer in between.

How do I run this on a schedule and only get what's new? Turn on Only new since last run (onlyNewSinceLastRun). It stores this Actor's last successful run date and, on the next run, asks the registry for organisations changed since then — no need to track ids yourself, and no re-paying for organisations you already have. First run with the flag on (no prior state yet) behaves like a normal search; every run after that is incremental.

What's in relationships? Organisation-hierarchy links from the registry's own data, e.g. an NHS trust site record links back to the trust that operates it (relTypeId: "RE6", "IS OPERATED BY"). Only present in detail mode / with Include full details on. targetName is null by default; turn on Resolve relationship target names (includeRelationshipNames) to fill in each related organisation's name.

Can I get map coordinates? Yes — turn on Add lat/long geocoding (includeGeo) and each record gains latitude/longitude, geocoded from its postcode via the free, open postcodes.io service. Unresolvable postcodes return null.

Something broken or missing? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab — it is monitored and fixes ship fast.

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