SNOMED CT
SNOMED CT is a structured clinical vocabulary for use in an electronic health record. It is the most comprehensive and precise clinical health terminology product in the world, forming an integral part of the electronic care record. It represents care information in a clear, consistent, and comprehensive manner.
- Benefits of using SNOMED
- Implementation plans
- Resources and support
- NHS Digital licensing information on SNOMED CT
Benefits
The move to a single terminology, SNOMED CT, for the direct management of care of an individual, across all care settings in England, is recommended by the National Information Board (NIB), in ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020: A Framework for Action‘.
The benefits of using SNOMED CT in electronic care records:
- vital information can be shared consistently within and across health and care settings
- comprehensive coverage and greater depth of details and content for all clinical specialities and professionals
- it includes diagnosis and procedures, symptoms, family history, allergies, assessment tools, observations, devices
- clinical decision making is supported
- it facilitates analysis to support more extensive clinical audit and research
- reduced risk of misinterpretations of the record in different care settings
Implementation plans
In England SNOMED CT was implemented across primary care and began to be deployed to GP practices in a phased approach from April 2018. All systems used by GP service providers were required to adopt SNOMED CT and SNOMED CT must be used in place of Read Codes
- secondary care, acute care, mental health, community systems, dentistry and other systems used in direct patient care must use SNOMED CT as the clinical terminology, before 1 April 2020
Resources and support
A wide range of resources are available to support the ongoing use of SNOMED CT. These resources are listed below and can be accessed easily on the FutureNHS Collaboration Platform (this platform requires users to register and log in).
- CCG and practice information:
- Where do I send my query?
- Data quality guidance
- A user guide for general practice
- Codes to support technical requirements 2018/19
- CCG checklist
- SNAP updates
- Supplier plans and training Guides
- Fact sheets
- Case studies/good practice:
- Rotherham NHS Trust Foundation Case Study
- SNOMED CT Case Study – City Hospitals Sunderland Trust
- Learning Disability Annual Health Checks
- Education and training animations
- Recordings/presentations
- Designing queries and searches in SNOMED CT
- An overview of SNOMED CT and expressing searches
- How to write a search in SNOMED CT
- Considerations from mapping Read to SNOMED
- Best practice and housekeeping
- Guidance handout
- Presentation slides
- Data Quality Webinar and presentation slides.
- Exploring SNOMED CT content for General Practice and presentation slides.
- SNOMED CT in General Practice and QOF Webinar – and presentation slides.
- Designing queries and searches in SNOMED CT
- Train the Trainer
- Train the Trainer presentation slides
- Train the Trainer workbook
- Train the Trainer answers