Organisations, Trusts and Regions

Levels of Abstraction

The organisational structure of health care in England and Wales influences reporting and table structure.

Organisations and Trusts

This is the lowest level of abstraction and represents either an acute or a community hospital/organisation responsible for epilepsy care of children and young people. There are often several organisations in a Trust. Each organisation, like each Trust, has its own ODS code, and from year to year there is movement between trusts as organisations change their allegiances between trusts when mergers are carried out. The organisation model therefore has more than once instance for some organisations, as their parent status or other details such as name change.

On a monthly basis the NHS ODS API is polled with any changes to organisational structure, and the local database record for that organisation is updated to reflect the latest changes.

Integrated Care Boards

These were introduced in 2022 and superceded Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) as the geographical commissioning areas within the NHS. The are 42 ICBs and trusts and their organisations fit neatly inside them like Russian dolls. Each ICB has its own ODS code and the ICB model is taken directly from NHS Digital with its boundary shapes for mapping, and is versioned. Currently there is no automated process to check for changes to boundaries or ICB membership and update the records. Note there are no ICBs in Wales.

Local Health Boards

These exist only in Wales and are both equivalent to Trust and ICB in England. One LHB might have several organisations and commissioning also is distributed across the 7 LHBs. As above, the model is taken from NHS Digital and includes the boundary shapes for mapping. Note there is no automated process currently to check for changes to boundaries or LHB membership and update the records.

OPENUK Networks

These are networks of NHS Health Boards and Trusts that provide care for children with epilepsies, organised regionally and overseen by a UK Working Group. Not all centres are members of an OPEN UK network. There are no boundary shapes to describe each region, but each one has its own identifier, and therefore there is an entity model to hold information on each OPEN UK network referenced by each organisation.

NHS England Regions

There are 7 of these in England and their model is taken from NHS Digital. Each one has its own boundary code. ICBs fit neatly inside each one.

Local Authorities

Local authority codes for each organisation are not stored except for those organisations in London. Local authorities are administrative regions not related to health or the NHS. In London local authorities are usually referred to as London Boroughs. There is a boundary model for London Boroughs taken from NHS Digital and this is used only for mapping. As above, although versioned, there is no process in place to check for updates nationally and update the database record.