1. NRLS API Overview
The NRLS API supports the following operations as detailed in the Solution Interactions section of this implementation guide:
| Actor | Read | Search | Create | Update | Delete |
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| Consumer |  |
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| Provider | |
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2. Pre-Requisites for NRLS API
2.1 NRLS Server API Conformance
- SHALL support HL7 FHIR STU3 version 3.0.1.
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SHALL Implement REST behavior according to the FHIR specification
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SHALL support XML or JSON formats for all API interactions.
2.2 NRLS Client API Conformance
- SHALL support HL7 FHIR STU3 version 3.0.1.
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SHALL support either XML or JSON formats for all API interactions.
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SHOULD support the NRLS Service RESTful interactions and search parameters.
2.3 Spine Services
The NRLS API is accessed through the NHS Spine. As such, providers and consumers of the NRLS API are required to integrate with the following Spine services as a pre-requisite to making API calls to the NRLS API:
| National Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Personal Demographics Service (PDS) | National database of NHS patients containing details such as name, address, date of birth and NHS Number (known as demographic information). |
Detailed Spine services pre-requisites:
To use this API, provider/ consumer systems:
- SHALL have gone through accreditation and received an endpoint certificate and associated ASID (Accredited System ID) for the client system.
- SHALL have either:
- Authenticated the user using national smartcard authentication, and obtained a the UUID from the user’s smartcard (and associated RBAC role from CIS), or
- Authenticated the user using an assured local mechanism, and obtained a local user ID and role
- And pass this user information in a JSON web token - see Cross Organisation Audit and Provenance for details.
- SHALL have previously traced the patient’s NHS Number using PDS or an equivalent service.
2.4 NHS Number
Only verified NHS Number SHALL be used with FHIR API profiles. This can be achieved using a spine accredited system, a Demographics Batch Service (DBS) batch-traced record (CSV), or using a Spine Mini Services Provider (HL7v3) to verify the NHS Number.
The NHS NUMBER is 10 numeric digits in length. The tenth digit is a check digit used to confirm its validity. The check digit is validated using the Modulus 11 algorithm and the use of this algorithm is mandatory.
3. Explore the NRLS
You can explore and test the NRLS GET, POST and DELETE commands and responses using Swagger in our Reference Implementation.
