§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to ensure that the SNOMED clinical coding system is implemented within the NHS. [31545]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 30 January 2002]: The SNOMED clinical terms first release is due at the end of January 2002 and, in the national health service, will be for implementation testing only. An evaluation and refinement programme has been funded which will examine implementation issues in both the primary care sector (the ADVENT project) and across a broad range of clinical specialities (multi-professional quality assurance—MPQA). In parallel, an implementation scoping study will address issues around costs, migration from read codes, supplier involvement, and education and training 559W requirements in the service. This will lead to the development of a costed implementation plan for roll-out of SNOMED CT across the NHS.