NHS Booking and Referral Standard

Guide v1.4.0 | Core v1.2.1

Receiver responsibilities

  • Receiving APIs should adhere to the HTTP Response code and Operational Outcome code paradigm described above in the event that an error response needs to be returned
  • The sender should be able to ascertain what went wrong and why in the event of an error
  • Receiving endpoints should use the REC prefixed Operation Outcome codes and provide clear and concise diagnostics texts
  • There should be no need to omit or use a different prefix when responding to requests
  • There will be times where it is not possible to generate a response in the above format
  • In the event this occurs, a relevant HTTP response code should be the minimum
  • Log errors locally for incident investigation by IT support staff
  • If the request is problematic, this should be logged specifically as a sender system issue
  • Details of the sender system should be logged to support investigation
  • As a minimum, the Operation Outcome must include:
    • The HTTP Response code
    • The Operation Outcome code
    • Clear and concise diagnostics information


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