Introduction of new specialty and clinic types

NHS England is working towards the implementation of a standardised Directory of Services (DoS).

This strategic direction will ensure:

• a standardised naming convention
• closer alignment to Treatment Function Codes in the NHS Data Dictionary

The previous e‑RS release introduced new specialties and clinic types.

These terms have been clinically reviewed with Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) clinical colleagues and other national clinical leads. 

A separate service mapping tool was introduced for service definers in the web-based professional application. This enables existing services to be mapped to the new specialty and clinic types.

The Retrieve reference data endpoint (A004) will contain new specialties and clinic types.

All existing specialties will be deprecated, with an effectiveTo date of 30/09/2026.

Some specialties will not have a replacement and will no longer be available after this date.

Other specialties will be replaced by new ENUM values and specialty codes, which will have an effectiveFrom date of  01/10/2026. 

For example:

*The specialty code is not provided in the A004 response and is shown here for clarity.

Specialty descriptions

In some cases, the specialty description will remain the same (as above), and in others the description has been updated. 

For example:

The 2WW specialty is being replaced with Urgent Suspected Cancer:

New specialty data

New specialties will also be introduced. 

For example:

Existing clinic type data

All existing clinic types will be deprecated, with an effectiveTo date of 30/09/2026. 

Some clinic types will not have a replacement and will no longer be available after this date. 

Other clinic types will be replaced by new ENUM values and specialty codes, which will have an effectiveFrom date of 01/10/2026. 

For example:

Clinic type descriptions

In some cases, the clinic type description will remain the same (as above), and in others the description has been updated. 

For example:

New clinic type data

New clinic types will also be introduced. 

For example:

New specialties and clinic types won't become usable in the system until the effectiveFrom date. 

To support the implementation of the DoS review changes, NHS colleagues have been provided with the following guidance and resources, which partner organisations may also find helpful: 

• Guidance to support directory of service (DoS) review
• New DoS specialties and clinic types workbook (.xls download)
• 
   

Following feedback, we have identified that the impact of these changes may vary depending on how supplier solutions have been implemented. 

Although these changes are intended to align with existing reference data requirements, some implementations may experience breaking behaviour if they make assumptions about specialty or clinic type values, descriptions, or code mappings. 

We therefore ask all integration partners to: 

• review the changes described in this notice and assess any implications for your software 

• work with your NHS organisations to understand how these changes may affect local services and workflow

• partners should also prepare and map any test services in the test environments in advance to ensure internal testing cycles are not affected 

If you need further information, please contact us at [email protected]