Healthcare Professionals API

36 votes

Healthcare professional information in England can currently be obtained from a number of different sources such as sds ldap API, publicly available csv file and search capabilities provided by professional bodies). There is currently no single API that provides access to all healthcare professional information in NHSD digital which makes integration for developers much more complex

The Healthcare Professionals API will allow developers to search and retrieve healthcare professional data from one single API and reducing integration and onboarding times.

The initial phase will focus on data sourced from SDS and will be limited to retrieval of doctors (GMC Code) with a smartcard. Subsequent phases will integrate additional data sources to provide wider coverage of healthcare professionals.

Under consideration api sds-fhir-api Suggested by: Fahim Mukhtar (24 Aug, '21) • Upvoted: 2 days ago • Comments: 10

Comments: 10

27 Oct, '21
Tony Heap Admin
We have put this work on hold as we are struggling to find a strong use case for it. Please upvote this feature if you have a good use for it, and leave a comment to explain your use case.
27 Oct, '21
Tony Heap Admin
"Search for SDS user FHIR API" (suggested by Emile Axelrad at Medicus on 2021-08-20), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
1
04 Nov, '21
Ernest Kissiedu
Healthcare recruitment companies are required to verify the locum doctors, nurses and AHPs they supply (to the NHS) are registered with these council bodies (GMC / NMC / HCPC) to ensure they are compliant. Having an API would massively reduce the time taken to complete this daily administrative task.
10 Nov, '21
Brian Diggle
This use case fits more into the Digital Staff Passports work where healthcare professionals have verified credentials in their mobile phone wallet which have been issued by professional bodies. See https://www.networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/yorkshire-humber-neonatal-odn/documents/enc-j-digital-staff-passport
23 Nov, '21
Naheed
This would really help protect the professionals and the organisations serving them. We serve them with information and training but are finding that many people are trying to access the system whilst not registered. This has proven tedious to manage and is unfair to those that are qualified professionals.
Please please can we get this done?
26 Oct, '22
Richard Ward Merged
In a similar manner to the ODS APIs, is there (or could there be) an analogous API that can be used to look up people? Perhaps it could contain such fields as:

Name (either as one string or split first/middle/last),
Type (GP/consultant/nurse/dentist/etc.)
Professional registration code/national code, if applicable (could/should include registering body?)
Registration status, if applicable

I am sure there are more fields that would be relevant, but I can't think of them offhand.

Better still, is there one that would link people to organisations? It would be good to be able to programmatically find out (for example) all of the GPs that work in a given practice.

Given the choice between "API only shows person data, not org links" and "API never exists because we cannot link people to orgs", I would much prefer the former - that it be possible to look up people without necessarily having org links available (at least in a v1?).
31 Oct, '22
Tony Heap Admin
"GP/consultant/nurse/dentist/etc. lookup API" (suggested by Richard Ward on 2022-10-26), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
01 Jun, '23
Dunmail
PRSB standards require practitioner name and details to be recorded.
An API will simplify data entry and improve data quality.
13 Jul, '23
Mathew
Advanced practice roles in both the primary & acute setting has increased the number of individuals referring for diagnostic imaging. IR(ME)R legislation requires any ‘non medical’ referrer to be a regulated medical professional. Imaging services are required to entitle ‘IR(ME)R duty holder status’ & maintain records detailing: Profession, agreed referral scope, qualification etc..

The ability to query/verify 32 professions across nine professional regulatory bodies would reduce day to day administration time, enable regular checks of registration status & identify local record removals. Ability to pull standardised demographics helpful as locally provided data often varied in quality & detail
1
17 Jan
Lindsay Blyth
Problem statement: Healthcare professional information for TIF supplier (various use cases)

NME GP Foundation system suppliers under Tech Iinovation Framework continue to have a dependency on getting the Healthcare Professional information for various use cases, which the current version of internet facing SDS FHIR API is unable to provision. Alternative is being forced to use legacy SDS LDAP query, which they would have no other use for. This makes onboarding for new foundation suppliers more complex and laborious than it needs to be.