Demographics and other administrative information about an individual receiving care or other health-related services.

0. References

1. Read

Return a single Patient for the specified id.

All requests SHALL contain a valid ‘Authorization’ header and SHALL contain an ‘Accept’ header. The `Accept` header indicates the format of the response the client is able to understand, this will be one of the following application/json+fhir or application/xml+fhir.

1.1. Response

A full set of response codes can be found here API Response Codes. FHIR Servers SHALL support the following response codes:

200 successful operation
404 resource not found
410 resource deleted

2. Search Parameters

Fetches a bundle of all Patient resources for the specified patient or search criteria.

All requests SHALL contain a valid ‘Authorization’ header and SHALL contain an ‘Accept’ header. The `Accept` header indicates the format of the response the client is able to understand, this will be one of the following application/json+fhir or application/xml+fhir.

2.1. Search Parameters

This implementation guide outlines some suggested search parameters for the Patient resource in the table below. To be conformant, provider systems are required to implement all of the SHALL parameters. Provider systems may implement the full list of search parameters for the Patient resource (HL7 FHIR STU3 Patient).


Name Type Description Conformance Path
address-postalcode string A postalCode specified in an address MAY Patient.address.postalCode
birthdate date The patient's date of birth SHALL Patient.birthDate
email token A value in an email contact MAY Patient.telecom
(system=email)
family string A portion of the family name of the patient SHALL Patient.name.family
gender token Gender of the patient SHALL Patient.gender
given string A portion of the given name of the patient SHALL Patient.name.given
identifier token A patient identifier (NHS Number, Hospital Number, etc) SHALL Patient.identifier
name string A portion of either family or given name of the patient SHALL Patient.name
phone token A value in a phone contact MAY Patient.telecom(system=phone)

Client systems SHALL provide at least two parameters of differing types, unless searching on identifier where one parameter is permitted. Systems SHALL support the following search combinations:

  • name + gender
  • name + birthdate
  • family + gender
  • given + gender

2.1.1. address-postalcode

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?address-postalcode=NG10%201ZZ

Return all Patient resources with Post Code of NG10 1ZZ.

2.1.2. birthdate

See date for details on this parameter. ‘birthdate’ can be used multiple times as a search parameter

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?birthdate=ge2010-01-01&birthdate=le2011-12-31

Return all Patient resources that have a birthdate greater than or equal to 1st Jan 2010, a birthdate less than or equal to 31st Dec 2011.

2.1.3. email

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?email=bernie.kanfeld@chumhum.com

Return all Patient resources with email address of bernie.kanfeld@chumhum.com.

2.1.4. family

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?family=kanfeld

Return all Patient resources with surname of Kanfeld.

2.1.5. gender

See token for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?gender=female

Return all Patient resources with Administrative Sex of female. 

2.1.6. given

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?given=bernie

Return all Patient resources with forename of Bernie.

2.1.7. identifier (NHS Number, Hospital Number, etc)

See token for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?identifier=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/nhs-number|9876543210

Return all Patient resources with NHS Number of 9876543210.

2.1.8. name

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?name=bernie%20kanfeld

Return all Patient resources with name of Bernie Kanfeld.

2.1.9. phone

See string for details on this parameter.

GET [baseUrl]/Patient?phone=07999123456

Return all Patient resources with phone number of 07999 123456.

2.2. Search Response

If the search fails (cannot be executed, not that there is no matches), the return value is a status code 4xx or 5xx with an OperationOutcome.

If the search succeeds, the return content is a Bundle with type = searchset containing the results of the search as a list of resources in a defined order. The result list can be long, so servers MAY use paging. If they do, they SHALL use this Paging method for breaking the list into pages if appropriate. The server MAY also return an OperationOutcome resource with additional information about the search; if one is sent it SHALL NOT include any errors, and it shall be marked with an entry mode of include.

A full set of response codes can be found here API Response Codes. FHIR Servers SHALL support the following response codes:

200 successful operation
404 resource not found
410 resource deleted

3. Example

3.1 Request Query

3.1 cURL

Return all Patient resources with a NHS Number 9876543210, the format of the response body will be xml. The Reference Implementation is hosted at ‘https://data.developer.nhs.uk/ccri/’.

curl -X GET -H 'Accept: application/xml+fhir' -H 'Authorisation: BEARER [token]' -v 'https://data.developer.nhs.uk/ccri/STU3/Patient?identifier=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/nhs-number%7C9876543210'

3.2 Explore the Response

Explore the response in XML & JSON on the Reference Implementation below