Significant facilities and codes

Codes for standard specialties

The specialty list and the healthcare profession list together provide a comprehensive list of professions providing care to patients/clients.

All patient episodes should be coded to the specialty/profession of the doctor/healthcare professional in charge.

If a consultant is recognised in more than one specialty, the patient episode should be recorded under the specialty that best reflects the care given for that patient's problem or condition.

The specialty designation of beds is not used to determine patient episode specialty.

Speciality code structure

The specialty code structure is hierarchical and comprises two levels:

• national
• local

The national level code is two to three characters long, where the first two characters identify a specialty, which has a Specialist Advisory Committee or other body responsible for higher professional training. The third character identifies a specific part of a specialty service about which national information is required.

The code may be extended to four characters for local use. This fourth character will have no significance nationally. 

Surgical specialties