111 Referral Standard: Final Report
Glossary of Terms
| Term / Abbreviation | What it stands for |
|---|---|
| The PRSB | The Professional Records Standard Body are a unique collaboration of groups representing those who receive and provide health and social care across the UK, as well as those providing the IT systems that support care. |
| The PRSB CTOP | PRSB clinical and technical operations panel |
| NHS E & I | NHS England & Improvement - NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked together as a single organisation since 1 April 2019, to help improve care for persons and provide leadership and support to the wider NHS. |
| NHS D | NHS Digital – Formally the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) was formed in 2013 as the primary delivery organisation taking charge of information, data and IT systems for commissioners and clinicians in health and social care across England NHS X and NHS D have integrated with the Transformation Directorate at NHS England. |
| NHS X | NHS X – Lead the digital transformation arm of the NHS setting standards and policy, supporting the digitisation of health and care organisations 2019 – 2022. After three years leading the digital transformation of health and social care as NHS X, NHS X and NHS D have integrated with the Transformation Directorate at NHS England. |
| NHS 111 | NHS 111 - is an NHS service which makes it easier and quicker for persons to get the right advice or treatment they need, be that for their physical or mental health. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To get help from NHS 111, you can:
|
| NHS 24 | NHS 24 – Scotland 111 service - provides urgent care and advice when your general practice, pharmacy or dental practice is closed |
| 111 Online | 111 Online - is a fast and convenient alternative to the 111-phone service and provides an option for people who want to access 111 digitally. It is one of several digital NHS services that are empowering people to manage their own health and care. Where enabled 111 offers the ability for the person to book direct into ED |
| 111 CAS | 111 Clinical Assessment Service - Through a single Clinical Assessment Service (CAS), healthcare professionals working outside of a hospital setting, staff within care homes, paramedics and other community-based clinicians will be able to make the best possible decision about how to support people closer to home, potentially avoiding unnecessary trips to A&E. |
| COVID 19 | COVID-19 is a new form of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). It was first reported in December 2019 |
| PEM For Information | Post Event Message – A message that is sent back to the registered general practice informing them of the encounter with 111 |
| PEM For Action | Post Event Message – A general practice Referral message from 111 which is sent to the general practice when action is required from the general practice. This is the current name and applies to the currently flowing ITK messages. In future this will be called a 111 referral. 111 sends a referral (PEM for action currently) when booking direct in to general practice appointments in England. |
| Repeat Caller | Identifies repeat caller that calls the 111 service on multiple occasions over a short period of time (in response to the section 28 of the coroners ruling in the Penny Campbell case). |
| Royal Colleges | The organisations that provide oversight and governance to the medical professions and provide endorsement to PRSB standards |
| BDA | British Dental Association |
| OCDO | Office of the Chief Dental Officer |
| RPS | Royal Pharmaceutical Society |
| BPS | British Psychological Society |
| NHS BaRS | Booking and Referrals Standard - The Booking and Referral standard is an interoperability standard for healthcare IT systems that enables booking and referral information to be sent between NHS service providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians. It will eventually be available in all care settings. |
| AACE | Association of Ambulance Chief Executives - includes:
|
| CDSS | Clinical Decision Support Systems |
| NHS Pathways | NHS Pathways - NHS owned algorithmic clinical assessment tool |
| NHS Pathways Outcome codes SG, SD & DX Codes | SG – Symptom Group – Presenting Need / Issue SD – Symptom Discriminator – Severity, Clinical need DX – Disposition Code – Urgency |
| AMPDS | Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System (AMPDS) is a unified system used to dispatch appropriate aid to medical emergencies including systematized caller interrogation and pre-arrival instructions |
| DOS | The Directory of Services (DoS) is a central directory that is integrated with NHS Pathways and is automatically accessed if the patient does not require an ambulance or by any attending clinician in the urgent and emergency care services. |
| PODAC Program | Pharmacy, Optometry, Dentistry, Ambulance and Community - national Digital PODAC programme to improve digitisation and productivity using digital technology across PODAC sectors. |
| ECDS | The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care. It replaced Accident and Emergency Commissioning Data Set |
| ED | Emergency Department (also known as A&E) |
| 111 – ED Pilot | A First of Type use case using the 111 Referral standard |
| FoT | First of Type |
| ITK Message | Interoperability Toolkit - provides specifications for electronic messaging between systems, supported by an accreditation for suppliers who build solutions that adhere to these specifications. |
| SNOMED CT | Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms 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. |
| Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) | FHIR is a Health Level Seven International (HL7®) standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. ... FHIR combines the best features of previous standards into a common specification, while being flexible enough to meet needs of a wide variety of use cases within the healthcare ecosystem. |
| IUC Specification | Integrated Urgent Care Service Specification |
| Use Case | A methodology used in system analysis to identify, clarify, and organise system requirements |
| NHS appointment booking standard | The NHS appointment booking standard is an open standard supporting booking across many care settings. It utilises the Care Connect FHIR messaging standard and is being published in the form of a website |
| API | Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you're using an API. |
| Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) | The HL7 Version 3 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA®) is a document markup standard that specifies the structure and semantics of "clinical documents" for the purpose of exchange between healthcare providers and people. |
Page last updated: 06 January 2026