PRACTITIONER CODES

1. Practitioner Codes are used to identify individual CARE PROFESSIONALS uniquely. This unique code allows for the identification of the CARE PROFESSIONALS involved in patient referral and the subsequent episode of care.

2. The National Administrative Codes Service (NACS) coding standard for practitioners follows long-standing NHS conventions. These coding standards have not been fundamentally changed, except for the GMC number which no longer has a check digit.

3. All NACS Practitioner Codes are eight characters in length, of the general format:

Char Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Format	a	n	n	n	n	n	n	n
Practitioner Coding Frame	Practitioner Type Indicator G or D	Doctor's Index Number or DPB number						check digit
	Practitioner Type Indicator C	GMC Number

4. The practitioner coding format allows the use of digits 0 (zero) to 9 and the use of selected upper-case alpha characters in the first character position indicate the practitioner type. G indicates a General Medical Practitioner, D indicates a General Dental Practitioner and C indicates a Hospital Consultant.

About Practitioner Identifiers

5. A doctor receives a GMC number on qualification as a doctor. If he/she chooses to enter general practice in England or Wales, a further 6-digit number is allocated by the Department of Health. This number is referred to as the Doctor's Index Number, the GP National Code or (less correctly) the PPA code. The latter reference arises as the number allocated by the DH is passed by the Primary Care Trust to the Prescription Pricing Authority who use it for the issue of prescription pads, etc.

6. The Prescription Pricing Authority also use it to derive the GMP code which is used by the NACS. This takes the code issued by the DH, prefixes it with the character 'G' to indicate GMP and adds a check digit at the end.

7. A General Dental Practitioner (GDP) code is based on the DPB code issued by the Dental Practice Board. The DPB code is prefixed with "D" and suffixed with a "137137" check digit. The code is used as the Practitioner Identifier for GDPs in England and Wales.

8. The Practitioner Identifier for all other practitioners (except GPs in Northern Ireland) is based on their GMC number.

9. In summary:

• The first character position indicates the practitioner type;
• The Practitioner Identifier for GPs in England and Wales is the 6-digit number issued by the DH - the Doctor's Index Number;
• The Practitioner Identifier for GDPs is the Dentist DPB code;
• The Practitioner Identifier for all other practitioners (except GPs in Northern Ireland) is based on their GMC number.

10. Check digits are obtained using the 137137 algorithm on the 6 digit Doctor's Index Number or DPB code, as follows:

first numeric character
+ 3 times second (numeric) character
+ 7 times third character
+ fourth numeric character
+ 3 times fifth character
+ 7 times sixth character

The check digit is then the unit digit of the result of this calculation. For example, if a Doctor's Index Number is 334512, then the check digit is computed by:

3 + 3*3 + 7*4 + 5 + 3*1 + 7*2 = 62 - the check digit is 2

and the full code would be: G3345122

11. The table below gives the structure and format of the Practitioner Codes found within the NACS files.

Organisation Type	Character Position								Alloc. by	Note
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
GP (England & Wales)	G	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	PPA
GP (Scotland)	S	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	ISD, Scotland	S prefix to avoid duplication
GP (N. Ireland)	E, N, S, W	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	NI HSS Executive	NACS Standard code under development
Dentist (GDP) England & Wales	D	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	DPB
Consultant (England & Wales)	C	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	DH
MoD Doctor	A	Not available - use default value see Default Codes Summary							DH
Prison Doctor	P	Not available - use default value see Default Codes Summary							DH
Midwife	M	Not available - use default value see Default Codes Summary							DH