Getting started with our APIs

Follow these seven steps to get working with our APIs as quickly as possible.

Whether you're a product owner, delivery lead, architect, software developer or a business analyst, you'll have a part to play in this process.

If you run into any issues, you can always get help and support from us.

Before designing your software, you should:

• get an overview of healthcare technology, integration and APIs by reading our introduction to healthcare technology
• learn about specific functional areas or care settings by reading our non-technical guides to building healthcare software
• find out how easy it is to integrate with our APIs by reading our case studies
• find out what APIs are available in our API catalogue
• learn about security and authorisation
• try our hands-on tutorials and open-access sandboxes
• read about our vision, mission, principles and roadmap
• see if there are any other data standards relevant to your project by checking the NHS Data Standards Directory

If you create a developer account on our API platform, and tell us which APIs you are interested in, we can let you know of any updates.

You'll also be able to manage your applications and teams, contribute to our developer community, and get access to security credentials for testing and production for some of our newer APIs.

Our APIs are provided to support the delivery of health and social care, primarily in England. 

For some of our APIs, you must check you have a valid use case. You’ll need to give us details of your product and what it does.

You should do this before you go too far with your development.

For more details on how to confirm your use case for a particular API, read its API specification in our API catalogue.

When designing and building your software you can:

• refer back to our API documentation

• get help and support from us

We provide test environments for you to test your software with our APIs. There are different environments depending on which APIs you are using.

For more details see testing your software.

For most of our APIs, before your software can go live you need to complete an onboarding process, such as 'SCAL' or 'digital onboarding'. This mostly involves making sure your software complies with various regulations and laws, such as security, clinical safety, information governance. We sometimes also call this software assurance.

It can take quite a long time, so it's worth planning well ahead.

For more details see onboarding process for APIs.

Once you’ve completed software onboarding you’re ready to go live.

If you have any issues, either during development or once your software is live, you can get help and support from us.