e-Referral Service - HL7 V3 API

Use this API to manage appointment slots for new or existing Patient Administration Systems, using our HL7 V3 API until there is a FHIR version available.

This API can only be used where there is a legal basis to do so. Make sure you have a valid use case before you go too far with your development.

You must do this before you can go live (see ‘Onboarding’ below). 

The following APIs are related to this one:

• e-Referral Service - FHIR API - use this for sending referrals from primary to secondary care (this interaction is deprecated in the e-Referral Service HL7 V3 API) 

This API is stable.

Interactions for sending referrals from primary to secondary care are deprecated and replaced by the e-Referral Service FHIR API.

This API is a gold service, meaning it is operational and supported 24 x 7 x 365.

For more details, see service levels.

This API is an HL7 V3 API. It is a mixture of:

• synchronous interactions, using HL7 V3 SOAP web services
• asynchronous interactions, using HL7 V3 ebXML messaging

For more details, see HL7 V3.

Message Handling System (MHS) adaptor

To remove the complexity of building your own Message Handling System, we offer a pre-assured, client side MHS adaptor that you can integrate into your own infrastructure.

It makes it easier to connect to the NHS Spine and perform business operations by exposing a RESTful API that confirms to the HL7 V3 standard. 

You need a Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) connection to use this API.

For more details, see Network access for APIs.

Authentication

This API is user-restricted, meaning an end user must be present and authenticated to use it.

The end user must be:

• a healthcare worker
• strongly authenticated, using either an NHS smartcard or a modern alternative

We support the following security patterns:

• user-restricted HL7 V3 API, using NHS Care Identity Service 2 (NHS CIS2)
• user-restricted HL7 V3 API, using CIS

For more details see user-restricted APIs.

Authorisation

For some activities, the end user must be authorised to perform that activity.

The API itself does not perform any authorisation checks. Rather, the calling system is expected to perform them. The authorisation rules are specified in our national Role Based Access Control (RBAC) database.

For more details see our national Role Based Access Control (RBAC) database on the registration authorities and smartcards page.

You can test this API using our Path to Live environments.

You must get your software onboarded before it can go live.

This API uses the Common Assurance Process (CAP) which is tailored for each NHS service.

For more details, see the e-RS Common Assurance Process (CAP) which explains how to get started with onboarding.

For a full list of interactions for this API, see the 'Choose and Book' domain in the Spine Message Implementation Manual (MIM).

For details on the general structure of the interactions, see HL7 V3.