Support and guidance

Help to the independent sector providers of NHS funded care on submitting data

Commissioning datasets

  • Submission through SUS
  • Guidance for coding CDS
  • Specialist training and support
  • Access to CDS data

Main data standards which apply to coding and classification in NHS and indepedent sector dataflows

  • Clinical coding - procedures
  • Clinical coding - diagnoses
  • Health Resource Groups (HRGs)
  • Commissioning data sets
  • Provider, commissioner, GP and consultant national codes codes

Central returns to UNIFY

The system for reporting and sharing NHS and social care performance information.

Information Catalogue

A searchable catalogue of current, proposed and past national data collections relating to health and social care.

  • Information are you required to submit?
  • Where to find out about submission
  • Where to find out about the data content (datasets and definitions)
  • How to get access to the resultant national data or publications

Commissioning datasets

Submission through SUS

Commissioning datasets (CDS) are submitted through the Secondary Uses Service (SUS), which is being delivered, as part of the National Programme for IT, by NHS Connecting for Health in partnership with The Information Centre for health and social care. For new users, we recommend that you first start by reading the SUS Handbook

The SUS website contains a mass of information, including detailed guidance documents for the change to XML messaging. The SUS What's New page has a link for registering to receive regular email updates on SUS.

The main ones of interest to the independent sector/NHS data flow are CDS types 130 for admitted patient care and 020 for outpatients.

Guidance for coding CDS

The datasets and the data item definitions are held in the NHS Data Dictionary. Changes to the data sets are issued through Dataset Change Notifications (DSCNs), with the facility to register for email alerts of DSCNs more

CDS is submitted through SUS who then apply checks and validation rules to process the data and pass it into the central SUS data warehouse form which various extracts or "Data Marts" make it available securely in a variety of forms - such as Payment by Results - to commissioners and other accredited users.

Further information on CDS are outlined in the Datasets section of the website more

Specialist training and support

CDS are usually coded by qualified clinical coders. Specialist support is available as detailed below:

The following organisations are known to provide services related to clinical coding and classifications. The IC takes no responsibility and has not assessed the quality or suitability of services provided by any of these organisations:

Access to data

The data are stored in two main places nationally, SUS and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). HES are derived from SUS data through processes of cleaning, validation, and deriving extra fields, on both a quarterly and annual basis. HES only use the admitted patient care (APC) and out-patient CDS types.

CDS are patient level data with patient identifiers, and also include information about the clinicians and GPs responsible for the care, and about sensitive areas such as HIV or GUM clinics. Good security and confidentiality procedures are therefore needed to protect these sensitive items.

More information here

Main data standards which apply to coding and classification in NHS and indepedent sector dataflows

Clinical coding - procedures

OPCS-4 is an abbreviation for the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys Classification of Surgical Operations and Procedures (4th revision). This statistical classification translates into code all operations and surgical procedures that can be carried out on a patient during an episode of health care in the NHS acute sector.

OPCS-4 is a mandatory NHS data standard, and its output forms part of the data flows for commissioning data sets and national Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). More information here

Clinical coding - diagnoses

ICD-10 is an abbreviation for the International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems (10th revision). It is used in the NHS acute sector to record diseases and health-related problems (the diagnosis or reason for a patient episode of healthcare). The codes are mandatory for use across England. More information here

Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs)

HRGs are standard groupings of clinically similar treatments which use common levels of healthcare resource. HRGs offer organisations the ability to understand their activity in terms of the types of patients they care for and the treatments they undertake.

They enable the comparison of activity within and between different organisations and provide an opportunity to benchmark treatments and services to support trend analysis over time. The prime purpose of HRGs is to assist the Department of Health to implement the policy of Payment by Results (PbR). For details of HRGs please refer to the links below:

Commissioning Data Sets

The primary purpose of national data sets is to enable the same health information to be generated across the country independent of the organisation or system that captures it. Further details here

Provider, Commissioner, GP and Consultant National Codes codes: National Administrative Code Service (NACS)

The NACS is provided by NHS Connecting for Health and is responsible for the national policy and standards with regard to organisation and practitioner codes. For more information here or if you do not have an NHSnet (nww) connection here

Central returns to UNIFY

UNIFY2 is the main online data collection portal used by the NHS to collect and share performance information, aggregate data and statutory returns.

The front welcome page to UNIFY2 is to be found here (NHS N3 connection, user ID and Password required) more

Format and content of returns made

Templates which show the content and format of the provider and commissioner returns made online through the UNIFY2 portal (upload templates) can be found here.You will need to have registered for a UNIFY2 account to access these pages.

Some returns apply only to commissioners, others to providers. Those returns which are relevant to IS providers with NHS-funded patients are diagnostics, referral to treatment times, inpatient and outpatient activity and waiting time profiles, additions to and removals from waiting lists, and cancelled operations.

Once reporting has been commenced it is extremely important that the reporting timetable is complied with, and that returns are not inadvertently missed in any month - if there is no activity to report a nil return should be made.

The timetable for all returns is found here.

How to submit a return through UNIFY2

Users have two ways to submit a return via UNIFY2. They can either go into the webform and manually submit the figures, or they can complete an Microsoft Excel upload template and go through the upload process. To submit using the webform:

  • Once you are signed in on UNIFY2, go to Data Collection and Management.
  • Find the return you wish to enter data for in the list and click on the reference.
  • Click on "Form »" on the left hand side and this will drop-down the form name.
  • Click on the form name and this will drop-down the form part.
  • Click on the form part and this will display the webform for you to complete.
  • Enter the data you wish to submit on the webform.
  • Click the "Save Changes" button at the top right and you should receive a "Changes Saved Successfully" message.
  • The data has now been saved in the webform and now needs to be signed-off.
  • See Signing-off DCT Returns for how to sign-off a return.

How to upload data

To upload a return onto UNIFY2:

  • Download and complete the relevant upload template (see upload templates)
  • Once you are signed in on UNIFY2, go to Data Collection and Management.
  • Find the return you wish to enter data for in the list.
  • Click the Upload button to the right of the return.
  • On the upload page, click the "Browse" button and select the upload template you have completed.
  • Put a tick in the Auto Sign-off box if you want the data to be signed-off automatically once it has been uploaded.
  • Click the "Upload" button and after a short time you should get a message saying the file has been successfully uploaded for processing.
  • Check in View Manage to make sure the return was successfully uploaded (and signed-off if auto sign-off was selected)

If auto sign-off was not selected, you will need to sign-off the return in View Manage (See Signing-off DCT Returns).

Information catalogue

The IC's Information Catalogue provides details of around 400 collections - including 35 of relevance to independent sector - including all Review of Central Returns (RCOR) approved collections. It can be used to inform indepedent sector providers, and other categories of care provider organisations, what information they should be submitting. Independent sector providers should select organisation type "independent and voluntary sector" and leave all other search parameters blank/unchecked.

The Information Catalogue provides the following information on each collection:

  • description frequency of data collection
  • sponsoring organisation
  • how to submit the information
  • links to further information about content (data definition etc)
  • how to access the data or publications
  • summary of primary users