Medicine and Allergy/Intolerance Data Transfer
An Information Standard which sets out definitions that are 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
- Owner
- NHS England
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active standards are stable, maintained and have been assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Standards in development are APIs or API standards in alpha or beta, meaning they are available for use but are still in progress and may change.
Deprecated standards are older versions of a standard which are being phased out.
Retired standards are not being maintained and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Record standards
Show definitions of standard types
Record standards define what information to collect and how to format it, for example when registering a new patient.
Data definitions and terminologies define the format of individual data items so they can be consistently represented, for example dates or medication names. Reference sets and controlled lists are also included.
Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
Information codes of practice are legal or best practice guidelines on how information should be handled.
- Contact details
- standards.assurance@nhs.net
Link to standard
- Documentation
- View documentation for this standardopens in a new tab
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Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Prescribing
- Dispensing
- Messaging
- Care setting
- Hospital
- Pharmacy
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
This standard needs to be reviewed and implemented alongside:
- SCCI0052: Dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d)
- SCCI0034: SNOMED CT
- FHIR R4 UK Core (the UK specific version) - guidance is provided that allows recording of a clinical assessment of an allergy or intolerance
- eDischarge summary v2.1 - NHS Digital worked with the PRSB to develop the specification for an electronic discharge summary. PRSB provided the approach and detail in the form of an information model for allergies and adverse reactions.
At the time of publication APIs and specifications are available to support the following use cases:
- Dose syntax - use this API standard to provide a structured way to record dosage instructions between primary and secondary care settings.
- Electronic Prescription Service - FHIR API - use this API to access the EPS (Electronic Prescription Service), the national service used to send electronic prescriptions messages between prescribers and community dispensers.
- ePMA (electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration) API standards - use this specification to develop an API to share medication requests between ePMA systems and hospital pharmacy stock control systems.
- GP Connect Access Record Structured - FHIR API - use this API to retrieve structured information (including medication and allergy/intolerance) from a patient’s GP practice record.
- Related standards
The following may also be useful resources:
- FHIR Care Connect API standards - use these API standards for FHIR STU3 England specific profiles.
- FHIR UK Core API standards - use these API standards for FHIR R4 United Kingdom specific profiles.
- Terminology Server API - use this API to retrieve terminologies and classifications from the NHS Digital Terminology Server.
- FHIR UK Core - published versions of the UK Core Implementation Guide
Assurance and endorsements
- Reference code for standards issued as requirements in England
- DAPB4013
- Quality assurance
This standard has been approved by the Data Alliance Partnership Board (DAPB) and published as an information standard notice (ISN).
- Endorsements
- Not applicable
Page last updated: 22 November 2022