Medicine and Allergy/Intolerance Data Transfer
Sets out definitions to be used when a health professional sends or receives patient medication and allergy/intolerance information by computer system between care locations.
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Reference code
- DAPB4013 Amd 5/2021
- Publication date
- 30/09/2021
- Publication version
- 1.0.0
- 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
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- Applies to
- All NHS care locations that:
- need to know a patient’s current medicines and allergies/intolerance
- prescribe, dispense or administer medicines
- use computer systems that could send or receive this information
- This includes acute, ambulance, community, mental health, specialist trusts, GP practices and community pharmacies
- Impacts on
- Implementation of this information standard impacts all health IT systems suppliers providing systems to the above providers; suppliers should work with their customers to determine necessary changes.
- Conformance date
- 31/03/2023
- Effective from
- 01/10/2021
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Dispensing
- Messaging
- Prescribing
- Care setting
- Ambulance (Urgent and Emergency Care)
- Community health
- GP / Primary care
- Hospital
- Mental health
- Pharmacy
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
This standard needs to be reviewed and implemented alongside the standards below:
- Care Connect FHIR API standards Use these API standards for FHIR STU3 England specific profiles.
- eDischarge summary v2.1
- Dictionary of Medicines and Devices
- UK Core Implementation Guide 1.0.0 - STU1 Use these API standards for FHIR R4 United Kingdom specific profiles.
- SNOMED CT
- Care Connect FHIR API standards
- Related standards
The following are related resources:
- Electronic Prescription Service - FHIR API
- Terminology Server API Use this API to retrieve terminologies and classifications from the NHS Digital Terminology Server.
- Dose syntax Use this API standard to provide a structured way to record dosage instructions between primary and secondary care settings.
- GP Connect Access Record Structured - FHIR API
- Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration API standards (ePMA) Use this specification to develop an API to share medication requests between ePMA systems and hospital pharmacy stock control systems.
Review Information
- Scope
- Health Services, NHS Services
- Sponsor
Fintan Grant, Programme Head – Interoperable Medicines, NHS Digital
- Senior Responsible Officer
Ann Slee, Associate Chief Clinical Information Officer (Medicines), NHSX
- Business Lead
- Andrew Walsham, Senior Project Manager - Interoperable Medicine Standards, NHS Digital
- Approval date
- 30/09/2021
- Post Implementation review Date
- 31/03/2024
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
NHS Digital Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and specifications provide the definitions, including:
- how the send and receive messages are constructed
- how the data within is structured so that it is machinereadable.
The purpose is to ensure that medication and allergy and/or intolerance data is transferred between systems and locations in a machine-readable format. This will be achieved by:
- transferring medication information using the newest UK version of FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)
- the usage of dose syntax to transfer the amount of medication per dose as a simple coded quantity
- transferring allergy/intolerance information using SNOMED CT and dm+d codes.
Note that it is not assumed that all in-scope locations will implement the standard by 31 March 2023; there will be leeway for those organisations which need to procure and install a suitable IT system.
Page last updated: 29 June 2024