Organisation Reference Data (ORD) changes project

Welcome to the information sharing portal for NHS Digital's Organisation Reference Data (ORD) Changes Project. Here you will be able to find all that you need to know about the project and access a variety of engagement materials.

About the project

The Organisation Data Changes Project has been formed to raise awareness of some fundamental changes that are being made to the Health and Social Care Organisation Reference Data, and identify impact to users of the data.

Why we are doing it

The Organisation Reference Data changes are mandated by a published Information Standards Notice (ISN - 0090). To reduce risk to Health and Social Care, NHS Digital needs to understand the scale of impact before progressing with implementation. The project will allow organisations to quantify impact for them.

The benefits

The project will facilitate recognition of the risks and impacts for your organisation, enabling you to identify how best to prepare and ensure safe implementation of the changes.

When it's happening

The changes will introduce a new code structure (ANANA) for organisation identifiers on 01/04/2020. A new data model is already available within a new XML release format for the data which is being dual run with the legacy CSV releases of the data. These legacy format files will be withdrawn by 2021.

How it's happening

From 01/04/2020, all new organisation identifiers allocated by the Organisation Data Service (ODS) will be issued using the new code structure (ANANA), but codes issued prior to this date will not be converted. By 2021, the legacy CSV products will be withdrawn and stakeholders will be required to consume XML.

Who it will affect

The changes are likely to impact any systems, services, processes or people that use Organisation Reference Data.

Please refer to the presentation (either via the pre-recorded video or under the engagement materials icon below) for further information.

Please complete the questionnaire below to tell us about the impacts of the changes on your organisation.

After the initial phase of engagement (January 2018 to April 2018), the questionnaire has been simplified and is now available for completion.

We've not set a close date for the questionnaire, as it's our intention to continue to raise awareness of the changes, and to encourage organisations to complete an impact assessment and inform us of how they will be affected by the changes. This will be a continuous process between now and the point of implementation (April 2020 for ANANA code formats, and November 2021 for the transfer to XML data).

We hope you find this site useful and if you have any comments or suggestions for how we could improve, please get in touch with us.