Search for additional instance and reference data

Overview

Use this endpoint to access a range of information contained in CodeSystems to meet your needs. We have CodeSystems that contain regularly changing data such as organisations, practitioners and relationships plus more traditional reference based CodeSystems.

CodeSystem names include the date when they were last updated i.e. ods-organization-code-2024-03-07, so when searching for individual concepts (records within the CodeSystem) it is necessary to perform a search using a $lookup providing the system and code required in addition to any properties you wish to return.

For example:

/CodeSystem/$lookup?system=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code&code=G81086&property=*

Summary information

You can return a summary of each codeSystem to see which properties are available and which search operations are supported, without attempting to return the data. Organisation, role, relationship, postcode and geography information will all generate errors as they are too large to be returned.

When you perform a search, unless you specify otherwise, we will provide a result in summary mode and list each instance of the CodeSystem currently stored on the Server. it is expected that we will retain 2-3 versions at any given point.

For example: /CodeSystem?url=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code

The smaller reference based CodeSystems can be returned in full using _summary=false which will return all versions stored on the server in full.

For example: /CodeSystem?system=https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/practitioner-role&_summary=false

For example: /CodeSystem?system=https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/succession

Code Validation

Using the $validate operation you can check whether a code is present within any given ValueSet and you can also provide additional properties to validate their values.

For example: CodeSystem/$validate-code?url=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code&code=RH8&status=active

Organisation data

ods-organization-code

https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code

In addition to the data available through the FHIR Organization resource we also have the following properties:

• related organisations using a Relationship ID such as RE4 (commissioned by), RE6 (operated by), RE8 (is partner to and RE10 (nominated payee for)
• presence of successor or predecessor information
• indicator for onward succession
• geographic values such as Local Authority boundary, Integrated Care Board boundary or 2011 Lower Super Output Area (LSOA11)

organisation-relationship-instance

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/organization-relationship-instance

• Contains relationship history

organisation-role-instance

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/organization-role-instance

• Contains role history

Succession

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/succession

• Contains succession (merger and acquisition) data for statutory organisations

Practitioner data

practitioner

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/practitioner

Contains the prescribing practitioner and consultants in a single CodeSystem to enable lookup and validation of practitioner codes. Practitioners are categorised with a type and role. Roles and types can be validated against the practitioner-role CodeSystem.

Types include PGP (General Practitioner), PNURSE - Prescribing Nurse and PDENTCON Dental Consultants.

Roles include PHOSPCON120 (ear nose and throat), PGP1 (principal GP), PNURSE1 (district nurse / health visitor).

Where practitioners are associated to an organisation, the current/latest values is held in a membership property, these include ME1 parent practice for GPs and ME4 parent trust for a Dental Consultant. More information about the associations can be found in the practitioner-relationship-instance CodeSystem.

This CodeSystem has been designed to enable practitioners with multiple codes, i.e a Prescribing Code and a General Medical Council (GMC) code to be returned or validated.

Properties numbered from 1 to 8 contain a specific identifier issued by a range of authorities, more information about each assigned identifier including start date and issuing Authority can be found in the practitioner-additional-attribute CodeSystem.

practitioner-relationship-instance

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/practitioner-relationship-instance

Contains relationship history where practitioners are associated with an organisation.

practitioner-additional-attribute

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/practitioner-additional-attribute

Contains additional information about the identifier issued to a practitioner, in addition to the identifier, the name and ODS code of the Issuing authority, start and end dates for the identifier are included.

Geographic Data

geography-name

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/geography-name

Supports the identification of Office for National Statistics (ONS) identifiers for geographic boundaries used within the ods-organization-code CodeSytem. ODS identifiers for geographic organisations such as ICB and Local Authority can be retreived from the Organization Endpoint.

postcode

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/postcode

Contains every postcode within the NHS Postcode Directory and a selection of their geographic boundaries.

More information about how this data is compiled can be found in the NHSPD user guide.

The following Geographic boundaries are included:

Reference data

ODSOrganisationRole

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/ODSOrganisationRole

Every organisation has at least one role; a primary role. It may also have additional roles which provide more information about the organisation's function or purpose.

The full list of role codes is contained in this CodeSystem and you can return all roles or individual role codes can be returned or validated. Our Reference Data Catalogue contains more help information.

This CodeSystem has 1 additional Property: primaryRole which contains a true/false value if the role is a primary role or not.

ODSRelationship

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/ODSRelationship

Every relationship has a type to describe the nature of the relationship, which includes: is Commissioned by, is operated by and is partner to.

practitioner-role

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/CodeSystem/practitioner-role

Within the former CSV publications for practitioners, any classifications against a practitioner such as consultant speciality code or nurse prescriber type have been converted to roles and can be returned or validated with this CodeSystem.