Have your say on plans to remove Concept Non Current indicators from SNOMED CT

SNOMED International plans to stop using Concept Non Current (CNC) indicators in the International Edition of SNOMED CT from 1 January 2026.

At the moment, CNC indicators are added to active descriptions when a concept becomes inactive. Under the new plan, this will no longer happen. All current CNC indicators will also be made inactive, but they will remain in place as inactive components.

You can read more in the SNOMED International document:
Concept Non Current indicators – Notice of Deprecation

This change will affect SNOMED CT systems that use CNC indicators. It will first appear in the April 2026 UK release.

SNOMED International is asking for feedback on this proposal by 30 May 2025.
To respond, fill in their feedback form:
Concept Non Current Indicators Deprecation - Feedback Form

If you have questions about the proposal, email:
information.standards@nhs.net

SNOMED International proposal to increase description length limits

This is an update to the post on Delen in January 2025 about a proposal from SNOMED International. The proposal is to increase the maximum length of Fully Specified Name (FSN) and Synonym descriptions from 255 to 4,096 characters.

SNOMED International has published more details about the proposal. You can read these in their PDF document: March 2025 date approval MF BN 20250326 v1.00.pdf.

They've also written a blog post, which is available on the SNOMED International website.

This change will affect UK users who use content from the Medicinal Product Hierarchy in either the SNOMED CT International Edition or the SNOMED CT UK Edition.

It will also affect FSNs created in the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension.

The proposal will not affect Preferred Terms (PTs) in the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension or the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d). We're not planning any changes to the dm+d as a result of this proposal.

SNOMED International has postponed the proposed implementation date to July 2026. This gives users more time to prepare. The change will take effect in the October 2026 UK release.

If you need more time to prepare or have questions, email information.standards@nhs.net by 29 April 2025.

We want your views on changes to the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension model

As part of the UK Medicines Terminology Futures work, we're planning to update the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension model to align with the SNOMED International model for national drug extensions.

If you use the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension, we'd like to hear from you.

Your feedback will help us understand:

• the potential impact of the proposed changes
• how much time users may need to prepare
• how we can work together to support the transition

You can find more details on the Updating the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension Model page.

Please complete our short survey by 5pm on Tuesday 22 April 2025.

Take the survey

If you have any problems with the survey or want to discuss this work, email us at nhsdigital.ukmeds@nhs.net.

We'd like feedback from NHSBSA dm+d and SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension users

Recent work on the addition of 'Ingredients for VTMs' in dm+d (XML) release files and the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension is complete.

The NHSBSA and NHS England terminology teams would like feedback from system suppliers regarding the potential impact of the possible re-use of SNOMED identifiers.

Read the Delen news article for more information.

Email feedback to dmdenquiries@nhsbsa.nhs.uk by 5pm on Friday 7 March 2025, including your supplier details and the impact on your system and users.

Share your views on SNOMED International's proposal to increase description lengths

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:

release@snomed.org

We also request that UK stakeholders copy:

information.standards@nhs.net

so NHS England can stay informed of any feedback.

SNOMED CT International Edition: long descriptions

This announcement affects subscribers to the SNOMED CT International Edition item.

SNOMED International included 2 descriptions in the April 2024 release which were longer than 255 characters. The May 2024 release shortened these descriptions to within the current 255-character limit.

Subscribers to items in the SNOMED CT UK Edition category will only see the shortened descriptions in release content. UK users who use the latest 'Snapshot' file of the International Edition will also only see the shortened descriptions.

Read more on Delen.

Share your views on SNOMED International’s proposal to increase description lengths

We are providing an update to the news posted on Delen in April regarding the proposal from SNOMED International to increase the maximum length of Fully Specified Name and Synonym descriptions from 255 to 4,096 characters.

SNOMED International have provided more information about the proposal. Read the news article on Delen. The deadline for feedback has also been extended to 31 December 2024.

As the UK Member's National Release Centre, NHS England is collating feedback from SNOMED CT users in the UK on behalf of SNOMED International. To provide feedback on this proposal, submit your response by 5pm on Tuesday, 31 December 2024.

Email questions or feedback to information.standards@nhs.net.

Uplifting SCCI0052: Dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d)

As part of the UK Medicines Terminology Futures work, we are seeking feedback from those who use or manage dm+d data, to understand the impacts of uplifting SCCI0052 dm+d.

The scope for uplifting the standard is:

• dm+d historical codes (already live)
• ingredients for VTMs (expected in dm+d: Quarter 3 2024)
• Trade Family and Trade Family Group (expected in dm+d: 2025)
• removal of the 'interesting' excipient field (data has not been in the dm+d extract since October 2022)

The purpose of uplifting SCCI0052 is to reflect these changes as part of the core dm+d data model and be reflected in the core dm+d extract, rather than as supplementary files.

We've produced a short survey to assess the impact on users and the resultant change to the core dm+d files and download. Please submit responses by 5pm on Friday 16 August 2024.

A sample test file, nhsbsa_dmd_5.1.0_20240513000001.Future.zip (ZIP, 16MB), is available which reflects the proposed changes. This file is not official dm+d data and is for test purposes only.

If you have any issues completing the survey or would like to discuss this work further, email nhsdigital.ukmeds@nhs.net.

SNOMED International consultation on the inactivation of role groupers in Substance and Medicinal Product hierarchies

This is an update to the news published on Delen on 21 March 2024 regarding the inactivation of Medicinal Product therapeutic role groupers.

SNOMED International have provided further advice on the outcome of the consultation on the proposal to inactivate therapeutic role groupers in the Medicinal Product hierarchy. Find information about the impact to content and the timescales for inactivations in the International content in this document (PDF, 97KB).

NHS England plan to reactivate the 178 Medicinal Product therapeutic role groupers (Excel, 15KB) within the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension to make the content available for SNOMED CT users in the UK once SNOMED International inactivate the content in the International Release.

Email questions or feedback to information.standards@nhs.net.