Following further discussions between the NHS Number team and the Digital Information Policy team, requirement 401 for acute trusts has been amended to reflect the time permitted for full implementation of the new NHS Number Standard for Secondary Care (England).

In making the amendments we are aware that the attainment levels for Requirement 401 are now outside of the usual format for IGT requirements, i.e. “nothing done; documented; implemented; evaluated”. However to assist acute trusts and in recognition that this is an NHS Operating Framework standard we have agreed that for version 7 of the IGT, level 2 can be attained as long as the trust has evidence that they have begun to implement the NHS Number Standard for Secondary Care (England).