NHS Digital is responsible for the UK management of SNOMED CT, the Read Codes and other products to support the implementation of terminology, including tools and derivative products.
NHS Digital maintains the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) in partnership with the NHS Business Service Authority.
As part of the national strategy to move to a single terminology across health and care, NHS Digital is in the process of withdrawing the Read Codes. The Standardisation Committee for Care gave notice in December 2014 of this planned withdrawal. Read more on the retirement of Read Version 2 and Clinical Terms Version 3.
We want to update you on SNOMED International's proposal to increase the maximum length of Fully Specified Name (FSN) and Synonym descriptions from 255 to 4,096 characters. More information about this proposal is available in the Delen news article.
The change will affect UK users of content from SNOMED International’s Medicinal Product Hierarchy, whether taken from the SNOMED CT International Edition or the SNOMED CT UK Edition. However, it will not affect the NHS dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d), and we do not plan to make any dm+d changes in response to this proposal.
We are reviewing how this change might affect FSNs in the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension, but we do not expect it to affect Preferred Terms (PTs) in the UK Drug Extension.
SNOMED International currently plan to implement this change in January 2026, with it taking effect in April 2026 UK releases.
If UK stakeholders need more time to implement this change or have any questions or concerns, contact SNOMED International directly at:
We also request that UK stakeholders copy:
so NHS England can stay informed of any feedback.
14 January 2025 9:00 am
A new release of item SNOMED CT human-readable subset - UK Drug Extension is available.
25 December 2024 7:30 am
A new release of item UK Drug bonus files is available.
25 December 2024 7:30 am
A new release of item SNOMED CT UK Monolith Edition, RF2: Snapshot is available.
25 December 2024 7:30 am
New releases are available:
25 December 2024 7:30 am
Read older news in the news archive.