Pathology Test and Results Standard
An information standard to form the basis of sharing pathology test requests and results for all of England.
About this standard
- Owner
- NHS Digital
- Status
- Active
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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
- Technical standards and specifications
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
- Referrals
- Continuity of care (ToC)
- Key care information
- Messaging
- Tests and diagnostics
- Care setting
- Community health
- Hospital
- Maternity
- Patient
- GP / Primary care
- Social care
- Urgent and Emergency Care
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
No known dependencies
- Related standards
- SCCI0034 SNOMED CT the clinical terminology standard to support direct management of care
- EDIFACT ISB 1557 the current clinical message exchange standard for GP-Hospital Communications, including pathology information using variant NHS003
- HL7 Version 2 (V2) and (V3) CDA® (HL7 Clinical Document Architecture); the current message exchange (de-facto) standard across secondary care/middleware including pathology test results from Laboratory Information Management Systems
- HL7 FHIR; the interoperability standard identified to facilitate the exchange of all healthcare information across the NHS in the future
- The Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM); the international standard for all units of measure being contemporarily used, including Healthcare
- The NHS Pathology Bounded Code List used within the ISB 1557 EDIFACT for the Pathology domain which, along with the NHS National Laboratory Medicine Catalogue are still released and were utilised to inform this specification
Assurance and endorsements
- Reference code for standards issued as requirements in England
- DAPB4017
- 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: 17 December 2022