The Core Information Standard defines a set of information that may be shared between systems in different sites and settings, and with professionals and people using services. It is a key enabler of integrated, joined up care.

The information accessed will differ depending on who is accessing it, for what reason and the wishes of the individual receiving care. Its use will be decided locally. NHS England specifies the Core Information Standard as the standard that all shared care records should conform to.

About this standard

The Core Information Standard defines a set of information which should be common to most systems and would be a merge of records drawn from different settings. It sets out what information should be shared between organisations and geographies and could be used to populate shared care records. The expectation is that this information would be read only, at least initially.

The standard will enable health and care professionals to:

• view a consolidated medication record
• run algorithms where there may be gaps in care
• identify individuals at risk
• proactively notify other health and care professionals

Local implementations will need to define different ‘views’ in their shared care record of the information for different professionals and other users, including people who use services, and local use cases based on the information governance framework which will be published by NHS England.

These views should define what information is needed by a professional (or a person) in particular circumstances. How the information is presented to professionals and people in a shared care record will be dependent on the local systems in place, but it should be presented in such a way as to provide maximum benefit for different users (in different roles) in each given use case.

A view of a shared care record conformant with the Core Information Standard has been approved as appropriate and complementary for professionals working in pharmacy, optometry, dentistry, ambulance and community services. The use of a national common core information standard across all services will complement the introduction and expansion of local ICS shared care record developments.

Scope

The Core Information Standard is a thoroughly researched and validated definition of the standard, tested with citizens, patients, carers and health and social care professionals.

• a core set of information relevant for direct care across a variety of settings.
• a set of information that could potentially be shared with professionals depending on their role and circumstances.
• a definition of the information professionals and people who use services have told us they want to see in a Shared Care Record.
• an information set that is readily translatable across clinical settings e.g. mental health to accident and emergency; acute care to social care etc.
• a blueprint for local implementations to draw from for their own local sources depending on local requirements. Local implementers may add to the core information.

The Core Information Standard is not

• a definition of an exhaustive clinical or care record / history.
• a definitive set of information about the person’s current status – no clinical record is this and clinical information needs to be understood by the professional reading it as such.
• a prescriptive definition of what must be included – this will be determined ultimately by local projects and specific use cases.
• a physical data model – FHIR profiles to support interoperability of the data between systems will be commissioned by NHS England.
• a definition of what information professionals should be able to see or change – this will be set out in NHS England’s Information Governance Framework and Role- Based Access Control work.
• a definition of how information should be presented to professionals – what is presented, the depth of history and how the information is viewed/accessed should be defined locally.
• a definition of a shared care record.
• a definition of how the content should be sourced, updated, de-duplicated and normalised i.e. the source data and its processing.
• additions or adjustments needed to successfully implement locally which must be defined in local projects.

How it works

The standard can be seen as a broad set of ‘flexible’ components (or sections), a sub-set of which will be relevant in different situations for different use cases. It has been designed as a generic standard, not for specific use cases. The expectation is that local health and care localities will prioritise their local use cases and build local interoperability informed by the Core Information Standard.

Use of the Core Information Standard in community settings: pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, ambulance and community services (PODAC): PRSB has validated the use of the Core Information Standard for shared care records to professionals working in pharmacy, optometry, dentistry, ambulance and community services, following widespread consultation with clinicians, people using these services and a range of PRSB stakeholders.

This will enable professionals working in these care settings to have access to the right information at the right time to provide clinically safe and effective care, subject to appropriate information governance controls. Using the standard in these settings should improve care and outcomes for people, and it should improve the working lives of professionals who won’t need to create workarounds or log into multiple systems to ensure they have a complete picture of a person’s current and relevant care history, before starting treatment. View the report

The changes made, in April 2026, to the PRSB Core Information Standard relating to sex and gender were undertaken as a response to Professor Alice Sullivans report Independent review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender - GOV.UK, which noted safety issues in data sets and clinical records managed both by NHSE and PRSB. The work was agreed alongside Prof Sullivan herself, and implemented by the PRSB into their core standard earlier this year.