Glossary of terms

The below table covers terms you may encounter in the context of the National Proxy Service.

Term	Definition	Related Terms
Proxy	An individual — such as a carer, parent, or legally appointed representative — who is authorised to access and manage a patient's health information and services on their behalf.	Parent, Carer
Patient	A person that a proxy is authorised to access and manage digital services for.	Subject of care
Proxy role	A record of a proxy and the patient they can manage services for, the legal basis on which the access is founded, and the status of the role e.g. active, inactive, rejected.	FHIR Consent resource
Relationship	A real world uni-directional description of a relationship that exists between two people.	FHIR RelatedPerson resource
Online account	A local account within a clinical system that enables access to digital services through patient-facing APIs. This can be access for self or as a proxy. Authorisation is enforced by the clinical system based on assigned permissions held locally.	IM1 PFS APIs, GP Connect PFS, Permissions
Verified relationship	A relationship that has been subject to additional checks to assert authoritative provenance e.g. a birth notification that hasn't been superseded or a civil birth registration. The intent is to provide this information to support clinical decision making and reduce the need to request hard copies of things like birth certificates.	Validated relationship, Verified candidate relationship
Linked profile	A legacy term used to describe a person's linked account with a patient for the purpose of executing their role as a proxy.	Proxy role
Access request	User-provided details submitted in a proxy application or nomination. These details may be captured in person or through the Proxy Application Service.	FHIR Questionnaire / QuestionnaireResponse
FHIR	Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources; A healthcare data standard developed by HL7 (Health Level Seven International) that defines how healthcare information is structured, exchanged, and accessed electronically to promote interoperable communication across health & care.
API	Application Programming Interface; allows systems to communicate.	Endpoint, REST
REST	REpresentational State Transfer; An architectural style for building web APIs that use stateless communication and standard HTTP methods to access and manipulate resources.	RESTful
DOS	Digital Onboarding Service. Process used to onboard new suppliers and services onto the National Proxy Service Capabilities. Each individual service has its own DOS process, including the Validated Relationships Service	Assurance
SSO	Single Sign On. A mechanism that allows a user to seamlessly access multiple services using one authenticated session. With NHS login this is achieved via token-based exchange between applications (relying parties) without requiring the user to log in again.