Health and Social Care Organisation Reference Data
Provides reference data about the Organisations that comprise the health and social care services, including non-direct-care Organisations, primarily in England but also in the other UK-constituent countries.
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Also known as
- Organisation Data Service
- ODS
- Reference code
- DAPB0090 Amd 25/2022
- Publication date
- 08/06/2022
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active. Active standards are stable, maintained and have been approved, assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Deprecated Deprecated standards are available for use and are maintained, but are being phased out, so new functionality will not be added.
Retired standards Retired standards are not being maintained or supported and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Information standards
Show definitions of standard types
Collections. A Collection is a systematic gathering of a specified selection of data or information for a particular stated purpose from existing records held within health and care systems and electronic devices.
Extractions. An extraction is a type of collection that is pulled from an operational system by the data controller and transmitted to the receiver without additional processing or transcription by the sender.
Information standards. Information standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines, or definitions.
Technical Standards and specifications. Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
- Contact point
Link to standard
- Documentation
- opens in a new tab
(opens in new tab)
- Applies to
- NHS Trusts
- Primary Care Organisations
- Commissioning Organisations
- Independent Sector Healthcare Organisations
- Healthcare Organisations in all other UK-ConstituentCountries
- Local Authorities
- Arms Length Bodies
- Government Departments and Non-Departmental National Bodies
- Arms Length Bodies
- Impacts on
- This change is likely to directly impact any individual, organisation or other body engaged in supplying, contracting to, or otherwise interacting with, health and social care that makes use of Health and Social Care Organisation Reference Data either currently or in the future.
- Associated medias
- Organisation Data Service (ODS) service information page A national service for managing information about organisations across health and social care.
- Organisation Data Service (ODS) service information page
- Effective from
- 29/07/2022
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Appointment / scheduling
- Data definitions and terminologies
- Demographics
- Key care information
- Messaging
- Reference data
- Referrals
- Care setting
- Community health
- Dentistry
- Hospital
- Maternity
- Mental health
- Pharmacy
- Social care
- Urgent and Emergency Care
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
No known dependencies.
- Related standards
A very large volume of stand-alone information standards require the use of Organisation Reference Data within data sets. For example to identify commissioners, referrers, those responsible for payment, and many other use-cases.
Review Information
- Sponsor
Will Monaghan, Director of Operations, NHS England and NHS Improvement
- Senior Responsible Officer
Fran Woodward, Director of Data Strategy and Policy, NHS Digital
- Business Lead
- Mike Presence Lead Business Analyst, Organisation Data Service, NHS Digital
- Approval date
- 11/05/2022
- Post Implementation review Date
- 31/03/2023
Legal basis and endorsements
- Legal authority
Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
More information
About this change
The information standard provides reference data about the Organisations and Sites that comprise the health and social care services, including non-direct-care Organisations, primarily in England but also in the other UK-constituent countries. The data is distributed and uploaded to health IT systems. It supports user security, access control, messaging and is used as reference data for both operations and reporting.
All health and care bodies must consider the impact of updates to the Organisation Reference Data information standard and make timely, appropriate changes to systems and processes.
The Introduction of Integrated Care Boards
The latest release formally introduced Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) into this information standard, following the publication of the Health and Care Act 2022.
Integrated Care Boards replaced the functions of Clinical Commissioning Groups in July 2022. However, although ICB boundaries are established and known there is not enough clarity around other requirements and so the update to this standard is taking place in 2 phases; version 1.2 of this standard covers the transition phase only:
- Retain and rename current, active STP codes and associate new Non-Primary Role to reflect Integrated Care Boards
- Retain and rename current, active CCG codes and associate new Non-Primary Role to reflect the Sub ICB Location / Geographical area.
Phase 2 will be introduced at a later stage – the exact date and form of these changes is yet to be confirmed because it is dependent on the requirements of the system, however, it is likely to include closure of the CCG/Sub ICB Location codes and introduction of further new codes to identify ICB Place.
ODS Product Modernisations
The withdrawal of the .csv format Organisation Reference Data files, introduced in SCCI0090 Amd 24/2015, was postponed, following feedback from data consumers regarding the impact of migrating to XML data files or API feeds.
In recognition of the broad range of consumers of ODS data, the service has invested in the development of new tools that bring the benefit of a single data source (improving reliability and consistency of data), but also provide the consumer with a range of data formats and download frequencies to suit their individual needs.
ODS Data Search and Export is in public beta until the end of August 2024. This tool will replace the ODS Portal, ODS DataPoint and .csv files published on the ODS website and via TRUD (Terminology Reference Data Update). The tool allows users to view and download data in excel or .csv format and contains a range of predefined reports that replicate legacy .csv content.
ODS Data Search and Export is fed by a new Organisation Data Terminology FHIR R4 API. This API is also in public beta until the end of August 2024.
Publishing ODS data via a FHIR compliant API is a modernisation of the service, allows for future uplift in line with the FHIR standard and supports interoperability across the health and social care system.
The Organisation Data Terminology FHIR API will replace the STU3 ODS API, and following engagement with users, will potentially replace the current ORD API. It should be noted that the ORD API, although an existing product, is now fed by the same data source as the FHIR R4 API, maintaining the ‘single source of truth’ for ODS data.
The ODS website will be continually updated as these new tools progress to live and legacy tools are deprecated. Updates to the 0090 standard are also planned in line with this service modernisation.
Page last updated: 29 August 2024