Written question asked by Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 23 October 2001, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 18 January 2002. It was answered by Hazel Blears (Labour) on Friday, 18 January 2002 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the SNOMED system for recording clinical details for all patient activity in other countries.

Answer: Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the SNOMED system for recording clinical details for all patient activity in other countries. [10282] Ms Blears: The use of the SNOMED system produced by the College of American Pathologists, and in particular SNOMED RT, has been assessed in other countries. The clinical details that it contained were weak in the area of primary care. However, because the Clinical Terms Version 3 (Read Codes) produced by the national health service were strong in the area of primary care the opportunity to have a collaborative project between the NHS and the College of American Pathologists was seized. The combined product, SNOMED CT (Clinical Terms) will contain over 400,000 clinical terms. Other countries and healthcare organisations who have SNOMED RT systems will be upgrading their systems to SNOMED CT when it has been tested and released.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 10282; 378 c530W;378 c526W
Session: 2001-02
Subjects: Software International cooperation NHS Patients Primary care USA Classification schemes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk