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SNOMED CT

An international standard for clinical terminology published by SNOMED International and providing a global common language for health terms.

Contents

Documentation
View documentation for this standard

About this standard

Publisher
NHS England
Reference code
SCCI0034 Amd 35/2016
Publication date
2 November 2016
Status
Active
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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
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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

information.standards@nhs.net

Using this standard

Applies to
All organisations directly providing and/or commissioned to provide NHS, Public Health and/or Adult Social Care services.
Impacts on
Implementation of the change to this information standard applies to IT systems that relate to the direct management of the health and care of the patient and any secondary uses of such data. Suppliers of systems to the above providers and commissioners should work with their customers to determine necessary changes. This change also impacts any current users of the READ codes. (Please refer to the notices relating to the retirement of READ codes 1552 and 1553.) Use within social care is in development and future communications around expectations and timescales will be provided in due course. Social care providers can seek support and advice through the UK Terminology Centre, should they want to adopt SNOMED CT. However this fundamental standard does not mandate a timetable for its use in social care.
Associated medias
  • NHS England SNOMED CT browser
    The NHS England online browser contains the SNOMED CT International release, the UK Clinical Extension, the UK Drug Extension, and the UK Pathology Extension.
Effective from
2 November 2016

Topics and care settings

Topic
  • Clinical decision support
  • Clinical safety
  • Data definitions and terminologies
  • Interoperability
  • Key care information
  • Messaging
  • Prescribing
  • Reference data
  • Tests and diagnostics
  • Vaccination
Care setting
  • Community health
  • Dentistry
  • GP / Primary care
  • Hospital
  • Maternity
  • Mental health
  • Pharmacy
  • Social care
  • Urgent and Emergency Care

Dependencies and related standards

Related standards

Review Information

Scope
Health Services, NHS Services, Adult Social Care
Sponsor

Sean Kirwan, Department of Health

Senior Responsible Officer

Tom Denwood, Director of National Provider Support, NHS England

Business Lead
Lynn Bracewell, Head of Terminology and Classifications Development Services, NHS England
Approval date
2 November 2016
Post Implementation review Date
1 April 2019
Technical Committee

Standardisation Committee for Care Information (SCCI)

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

SNOMED CT was published as an information standard by the Information Standards Board in August 2011; this version details amendments to both the published standard and the dates for implementation.

SNOMED CT is an international clinical terminology that provides the vocabulary for IT systems to support the direct management of the health and care of an individual.

It also enables the representation of clinically relevant information consistently and reliably in a way that can be processed by IT systems. This enables IT systems to exchange data across the health and care environment; provide clinical decision support tools and undertake enhanced analytics to support effective delivery of high quality healthcare to individual people and populations.

SNOMED CT is required to be used for communicating clinical content across health and care within the NHS standard contracts and is also stated as the required terminology to support direct management of care within the policy document published by the National Information Board (NIB): Personalised Health and Care 2020: A Framework for Action.

About this change

SNOMED CT is the only current information standard for clinical terminology and this change seeks to ensure its implementation is planned to coincide with national requirements in relation to electronic records. There are three elements to the change:

  1. Confirmation of the timescales for the cessation of SNOMED CT releases in Release Format 1 (RF1) and the subsequent move to releases only being provided in Release Format 2 (RF2). All existing users (including any social care providers) will need to change to RF2.
  2. Conversion of the current information standard to align with the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. This includes the provision of Implementation Guidance.
  3. Confirmation of application of this standard in specified operational settings including implementation dates in alignment with national policy.

Existing users need to be aware that SNOMED CT will be required to be incorporated into any future information standards that require consistent recording and interoperability of clinically related data items.

Implementation dates

All Current users (including any social care users) of SNOMED CT in Release Format 1 (RF1) must move to SNOMED CT in Release Format 2 (RF2) no later than 1 October 2018.

Providers of health and care are required to be paperless at the point of care before 2020: supporting IT systems must incorporate SNOMED CT as the clinical terminology.

The following is a summary of conformance dates for appropriate implementation of SNOMED CT that all providers and standards developers must be aware of when planning new, or making changes to existing IT systems or relevant operational information standards:

  • Systems used by, or communicating coded clinical data to, General Practice service providers must use SNOMED CT as the clinical terminology within the system before 1 April 2018. SNOMED CT must be utilised in place of the READ codes before 1 April 2018.
  • Systems used within Secondary Care, Acute Care, Mental Health Services, Community Services, Dentistry and Optometry - for the direct management of care of an individual - must use SNOMED CT as the clinical terminology standard within all electronic patient level recording and communications before 1 April 2020.
  • Systems used by all other providers of health related services where the flow of information for the direct management of patient care comes into the NHS must use SNOMED CT by 1 April 2020.

Mandated dates for implementation in social care are expected to be part of a future update of the standard.

Page last updated: 13 May 2024