Brief guidance on how clinical terminologies are expected to be used within the Care Connect FHIR® API.

UK Terminology Centre (UKTC)

The UKTC is responsible for the UK management of SNOMED CT, Read Codes and other healthcare terminology products.

The UKTC also maintains the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) in partnership with the NHS Business Service Authority.

SNOMED CT, READ2 & CTV3 Code Usage

Secondary Care systems are expected to handle coded data as follows:

  • Data originally entered into a system using the preferred system (i.e. SNOMED CT)
    • SHALL be returned as SNOMED CT.
    • If no suitable code exists in the value set (i.e. if only text is available, then just text MAY be used).
  • Data originally entered into a system using an alternate coding system (i.e. READ2 or CTV3)
    • SHALL be returned in the code system it was originally entered in (i.e. READ2 or CTV3) AND
    • SHALL also be returned as a preferred code (i.e. SNOMED CT) if a valid mapping/alternate code exists (i.e. there is a NHS Digital assured READ2 or CTV3 to SNOMED CT mapping in place).

Assured Mappings

Assured Mappings can be found in the NHS Data Migration download.

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