Secondary Uses Service what's new

SUS+ March 2020 Inclusion

26/03/2020

Over the March 2020 inclusion period, SUS experienced an intermittent hardware fault that was not detected by our monitoring. The hardware fault has now been resolved however up to 0.4% of data was not included in the inclusion extracts. In order to protect daily extracts that are necessary for monitoring COVID-19 related activity, DSCROs have been asked to delay requesting large volumes of data until the weekend of 28 and 29 March 2020.

We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused and thank you for your patience.

SUS+ interchange challenge reports

11/03/2020

On the 4 March 2020, the SUS team implemented a change to send interchange challenge reports to the sender of the interchange instead of to the provider of the care. We did not, however, cater for a historical anomaly in the way that the Sender's EDI address is transmitted in the interchange.

This has meant that several organisations have stopped receiving interchange challenge reports. We are working on building a resolution for this problem, but we will not implement it until 25 March 2020. This is because we observe a change moratorium over each inclusion week.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

SUS+ provider code issue

05/03/2020

On Wednesday 26 February 2020, SUS+ deployed code to handle the upcoming ANANA org code changes. This deployment stopped SUS+ trimming inbound provider codes from 5 to 3 characters. “XXX00” provider codes were in SUS+ that did not match the smart card org roles of “XXX” when extracts were run by providers. This org code mismatch caused provider extracts to return zero record counts.

A hot fix was deployed in SUS+ to re-enable the trimming of 5-character provider codes at 6pm on Tuesday 3 March 2020.

BULK submitters are asked to re-submit interchanges to SUS+ since 6pm Wednesday 26 February 2020 to 6pm on Tuesday 3 March 2020 and the provider codes will be trimmed to 3 characters.

On Thursday 5 March 2020, SUS+ began replaying all NET interchanges sent to SUS+ since 6pm Wednesday 26 February 2020 to 6pm on Tuesday 3 March 2020, to enable provider codes to be trimmed to 3 character level.

During this time submitters will receive duplicate interchange progress emails and interchange DQ feedback reports.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

SUS+ Multi Tariff Processing

24/02/2020

SUS+ Multi Tariff Processing allows users to choose the financial year for a PbR extract. Both pricing reference data and the grouper for the selected year will be applied.

The extract format and column structure will be the same as that for the current financial year and users can construct their own extract.

The following SUS+ guidance documents have been updated

SUS+ Portal User Guide on SUS+ Guidance

SUS+ PbR Reference Manual on SUS+ PbR

Changes to the SUS+ Interchange Challenge Report

07/02/2020

The configuration of the SUS+ Interchange Challenge Report is changing. Challenges to records will be returned to the Mesh Mailbox associated with the cds interchange sender id (EDI address) of the sender, if this EDI address has opted in.  This has the outcome of allowing the sender (eg provider, third party) to receive the report and guards against incorrect submission of provider codes.

Both the CSV and JSONL will contain a Provider Code attribute, as per the updated interchange data quality specification.

This functionality will be live in SUS+ from 8pm on Wednesday 4 March 2020.

Archiving 2016/17 data from SUS+

27/01/2020

SUS+ supports two years plus the current year of active data for commissioning purposes. Data that is older than this is archived and will be held in SEM format and JSON format for extract by special request. The SUS+ team have not activated the archival over the last two years. We are going to re-instate this pattern starting with data for the 2016/17 financial year. This will include data for closed admitted patient care (APC), outpatient (OP) and accident & emergency (A&E). Any open admitted patient care spells with one or more episodes in the 2016/17 financial year will continue to be processed, including updates to the 2016/17 episode data.

We do not anticipate that providers will need to update 2016/17 data. However, we are giving notice that if any updates to this data are required they should be submitted to SUS by 5 February 2020. 

2016/17 data received after this data will not be included in the archived data (except for data related to open spells). 

From 6 February 2020 access to 2016/17 data will be removed from the SUS+ Portal and this data will only be available on request via the SUS+ Historical Data Request Form.

Admitted patient care data related to patients who were discharged after 31 March 2017 will continue to be available via the PbR extracts in the SUS Portal.

SUS+ Portal extracts issue

13/01/2020

Due to a coding issue released on Wednesday 8 January 2020, the ability to copy already run extracts or drafts on the SUS+ portal, is currently not available.

SUS+ has a code fix going in on Wednesday 15 January 2020. Until then, users will need to create extracts from scratch.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

SUS+ processing as normal

07/01/2020

SUS+ has resolved the issue of an interrupted interchange during processing and has unblocked the inbound queue.

Interchanges are processing and will take priority over extracts.

We apologise for any inconvenience. 

SUS+ inbound queue paused

07/01/2020

SUS+ has experienced a database node going down during processing of a cds interchange. To protect data integrity, SUS+ inbound queues have been paused since 8pm last night.

Engineers are investigating the impact of the downed database node and we will endeavour to re-establish SUS+ interchange processing as soon as possible.

We apologise for any inconvenience. 

SUS+ Annual User Satisfaction Survey 2019

11/11/2019

The annual SUS+ User Satisfaction Survey is now available to all SUS+ users.

Access the survey

Thank you for taking the time to complete this short survey.

SUS+ 2020-21 - Submission timetable published

04/11/2019

The SUS+ 2020-21 Submission timetable has been published on the SUS PbR Guidance webpages. The timetable contains details of 2020-21 financial year submission and publication dates for Reconciliation, Post-Reconciliation, HES deadlines and Annual HES Refresh inclusion dates.

Submitting data to SUS

25/09/2019

An updated Submitting data to SUS guidance document has been published on the SUS guidance web page 

EDT removed from SUS+

11/09/2019

Please note that External Data Transfer (EDT) was removed from SUS+ at 6pm on Wednesday 11/09/2019. 

The only way to submit interchanges to SUS+ now is via Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH).

If you have not submitted interchanges to SUS+ via MESH yet, please contact your XML middleware supplier.

Notice of EDT deprecation re-published

14/08/2019

Please note that after 30 August 2019 the use of the Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) will no longer be supported by the SUS+ service. 

After 30 August 2019 only the Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH) mechanism will be supported by the SUS+ service for the transfer of CDS interchange data.

If you have any issues with the removal of EDT after 30 August 2019, please  email sus@nhs.net

Same Day Emergency Care Survey

29/07/2019

The Same Day Emergency Care Survey is now available.

SUS+ Portal planned outage - Wednesday 17 July 2019

11/07/2019

Due to the planned Care Identity Service (CIS) essential maintenance outage on Wednesday 17 July 2019 from 18:30 to 23:59, the SUS+ Portal will not be available from 18:00 to 20:00.

SUS+ users who are required to run extracts after the inclusion deadline on 17 July 2019, should aim to run their extracts before 18:00, after 20:00 or utilise the SUS+ deferred extract functionality.

NHS Digital Provider and Commissioner Surveys

09/07/2019

NHS Digital is reviewing the way in which data is transmitted from NHS providers to NHS Digital for secondary uses. The aim is to identify ways to reduce duplication and simplify existing data submission processes.

Please can you complete our provider (Trust) or commissioning (CCG) surveys, which will enable us to capture at a high level, the impact, indicative costs and timescales for the adaption of your systems to enable these proposed changes. The closing date is midnight, 12 July 2019.

Archiving 2015/16 data from SUS+

26/06/2019

SUS+ supports two years plus the current year of active data for commissioning purposes. Data that is older than this is archived and will be held in SEM format and JSON format for extract by special request. The SUS+ team have not activated the archival over the last two years. We are going to re-instate this pattern starting with data for the 2015/16 financial year. This will include data for closed admitted patient care (APC), outpatient (OP) and accident & emergency (A&E). Any open admitted patient care spells with one or more episodes in the 2015/16 financial year will continue to be processed, including updates to the 2015/16 episode data.

We do not anticipate that providers will need to update 2015/16 data. However, we are giving notice that if any updates to this data are required they should be submitted to SUS by 12 July 2019. 

2015/16 data received after this data will not be included in the archived data (except for data related to open spells). 

From 2 August 2019 access to 2015/16 data will be removed from the SUS+ Portal and this data will only be available on request via the SUS+ Historical Data Request Form.

Admitted patient care data related to patients who were discharged after 31 March 2016 will continue to be available via the PbR extracts in the SUS Portal.

CDS6.2 and CDS6.2.2 (ECDS phase 2) submissions to SUS+ via MESH

13/06/2019

From 0800 this morning changes have been implemented in SUS+ to enable support of CDS Schema 6.2.2 (ECDS Phase 2) and the submission of all CDS interchange types (CDS6.2) over MESH.  Colleague organisations with the required approvals can now begin these submissions, Test and LIVE interchanges are supported both for CDS Schema 6.2.2 and CDS schema 6.2 submitted via MESH. 

The new deadline for EDT deprecation is now 31/08/2019.

NOTE:  Organisations that submit interchanges to SUS are advised to exercise care when transitioning between the EDT and the MESH channels.  Due to the independent nature of these channels within SUS there is a chance that interchanges could be processed out of order if interchanges for a provider are sent over both.  It is recommended that interchanges that have been submitted via EDT for a given provider, should complete before interchanges for the same provider are submitted via MESH.  Interchanges for a given provider should not be interleaved across channels.

Weekly SUS+ release

15/04/2019

The weekly SUS+ release on Thursday 11/04/2019 at 6pm, included the implementation of the latest ECDS SNOMED validation table, SNOMED translation table and the change to the Patient Group processing.

Weekly SUS+ release

15/03/2019

The weekly SUS+ release that went in last night 14/03/2019 at 6pm, did not include any changes to the SUS+ ECDS processing logic. 

Those changes will aim to be deployed as part of the next SUS+ weekly release on 27/03/2019.

2018 SUS+ User Satisfaction Survey - Results

08/03/2019

The 2018 SUS+ User Satisfaction Survey Results have been published.
SUS+ User Satisfaction Survey 2018 - Results

Thank you to all responders of the survey. If you have any questions, please email sm.celleight@nhs.net

Weekly SUS+ release delayed

07/03/2019

Due to unforeseen circumstances, last night's scheduled SUS+ release (06/03/2019) has been postponed until the evening of Wednesday 13 March 2019.

We apologise for the inconvenience. 

Weekly SUS+ release delayed

07/03/2019

Due to unforeseen circumstances, last night's scheduled SUS+ release (06/03/2019) has been postponed.

We will update this web page when a new release deployment date is confirmed.

We apologise for the inconvenience. 

Implementation of ECDS changes in SUS+

05/03/2019

From the evening of Wednesday 06 March 2019, SUS+ will be updated to reflect changes identified in the most recent version of the ECDS TRUD.  This includes the implementation of changes to the translation of ECDS codes to the CDS 010 Patient Group and the implementation of the new translation table documented in the TRUD.

By design these changes are not date bound within SUS+ and so will impact all ECDS records in the data store.  Users wishing to update previously downloaded data with the new derivations can do so by extracting the ECDS data from SUS+ on or after Thursday 07 March 2019.  All ECDS data extracted on or after that date will reflect the revised translation table and processing logic. 

***Note:  Providers do not need to re-submit data in order to have the new values reflected in SUS

The SUS team will liaise directly with DSCROs and other ALBs who are receiving weekly feeds of ECDS data to arrange for the generation of new baselines to reflect the changes to the processing logic.

There is a SUS+ User Show and Tell on Wednesday 06 March 2019 where the team will respond to questions.  If you have not had an invite to that please contact the team mailbox at sus@nhs.net and we will add you to the invite list.

Validation of UBRN and Patient Pathway Identifier (PPID) in SUS+

05/03/2019

Please note that the validation of submitted UBRN and PPID values by SUS+ is dependent on an unautomated feed of weekly of data from the eRS system.  This can result in some records being marked as having a invalid identifiers as a result of the time lag between the two systems.

Notice of EDT deprecation re-published

01/02/2019

Please note that after 30 May 2019 the use of the Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) file transfer mechanism will no longer be supported by the SUS+ service.  After 30 May 2019 only the Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH) mechanism will be supported by the SUS service for the transfer of CDS interchange data.

EDT is a legacy transfer mechanism that was used to transfer CDS Interchanges in the SUS system. The decision was taken to continue support for EDT in the replacement SUS+ system.  This reduced the level of change that the NHS had to accommodate during the transition to SUS+ thereby reducing the level of risk to that project.

EDT is not, however, a strategic product and is not fully supported. It therefore represents a risk to the SUS+ service.

MESH is the fully supported strategic mechanism for transmitting data between NHS organisations. It is therefore important that the transfer of vital CDS interchange data be moved to the MESH protocol. 

The SUS+ system has now been amended to support the receipt of all SUS+ CDS types using the MESH transport mechanism. This includes both test and live interchanges. Organisations that transmit CDS data to SUS+ now have eight months to move their transmissions to MESH.

News Archive

Please report any service issues to the NHS Digital National Service Desk (NSD) via the NSD weblog tool (log in required), or call 0300 303 5035.

Find important SUS service announcements, information on planned outages and known issues.

The latest weekly trust reports are available on the Operational Support page.