Northern Ireland Connectivity Equivalents
The hospital estate baseline, shared-record matrix and diagnostic platform matrix separate Epic/encompass, EpicCare Link, Orion NIECR, Clinisys CoreLIMS and Sectra NIPACS+.
This page maps Northern Ireland's healthcare connectivity services, including the network, patient identity, GP registration, record access, medicines and diagnostics. Use the UK Healthcare Connectivity Landscape for the four-nation view and Diagnostic Results and Image Exchange for the different roles of laboratory results and imaging.
Current Reading
Northern Ireland should be read through HSCNI and DHCNI services rather than NHS England GP Connect. The closest functional routes are the Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record, encompass, EpicCare Link, My Care, Health and Care Number / digital identity-service work, NHAIS for GP registrations, GP2GP under GP IT Modernisation, and the ePharmacy programme.
The portal and record-access comparison, checked on 15 September 2026, separates encompass's clinical record and workflows from EpicCare Link's professional access and My Care's patient access. General practice is outside the core encompass programme, but GPs can view Trust records and perform defined actions through EpicCare Link. My Care still excludes GP records and GP-requested results.
The September 2026 landscape review adds an important distinction: NIDIS is already operational for patient-demographic and Health and Care Number distribution, while replacing NHAIS GP-registration functions is a separate phase. A February 2026 procurement notice still seeks NHAIS support and gives no replacement date for cervical screening. NIDIS go-live therefore does not establish complete NHAIS retirement.
Connectivity Layers and Status
Status describes the cited evidence checked on 15 September 2026. The comparison is by function; these services do not collectively form another deployment of England's Spine.
| Layer | Northern Ireland service and role | Evidenced status | InterSystems position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network | HSC Wide Area Network and BSO ITS regional network-security responsibilities. | Operational infrastructure documented in BSO's 2024/25 annual report. | No InterSystems network-supplier evidence. |
| Patient identity | Health and Care Number (HCN), distributed with demographics by Northern Ireland Digital Identity Service (NIDIS). | Phase 1 live since 2023; BSO documents a patient viewer and application APIs. | NHAIS's database supplier cannot be inferred to supply NIDIS. |
| GP registration | NHAIS records registrations and related administrative functions; NIDIS Phase 2 modernises registration. | Replacement planned / completion unverified. February 2026 support notice retains contingency, separately identifying cervical screening. | Direct Caché licensing evidence for NHAIS only. |
| Shared record / EPR | NIECR aggregates information; encompass provides the regional Epic care record. | Encompass live across all five Trusts by May 2025. NIECR's dated transition guidance preserves historical access pending an archive; final retirement is unverified. | Epic is named for encompass. Rhapsody's integration role is supplier-reported. |
| Professional / patient access | EpicCare Link and My Care expose different views and actions over encompass information. | Live access routes, with limits. Professional requests and patient self-service are scoped; My Care excludes GP records and GP-requested results. | No InterSystems supplier attribution. |
| Medicines | ePharmacy programme. | Multi-project programme extending into the 2030s; establish individual go-lives separately. | No InterSystems supplier attribution. |
| Laboratory | CoreLIMS regional laboratory system. | Regional rollout reported complete: 11 hospitals, five Trusts and NIBTS in BSO's March 2026 statement. | BSO names Clinisys; this is separate from the Welsh InterSystems laboratory system. |
| Imaging | NIPACS+ for regional images, radiology and additional imaging specialties. | Regional deployment reported: final Phase 2 Trust go-lives in May 2025; June 2026 closure event announced July transition to operations. | BSO names Sectra, not InterSystems. |
Organisation Reference Data
The ODS Northern Ireland organisation catalogue documents Digital Health and Care NI-maintained organisation data distributed through ODS. This entry covers HSC Trusts and non-HPSS provider/organisation types; it is not a complete catalogue of every organisation class or an SDS-style system-endpoint directory. See the UK Core Services Matrix for the four-nation comparison.
NIDIS and NHAIS Replacement
HCN is the patient identifier. NIDIS is the service managing and sharing identity information. NHAIS is a legacy registration and administrative application. They should not be presented as interchangeable names.
| Stage or function | What the source establishes | Status boundary |
|---|---|---|
| NIDIS Phase 1 | BSO's 10 November 2023 report describes users moved to the patient viewer, around 60 applications connected through APIs, and demographic updates distributed to PAS, pathology, NIPACS+, NIECR and encompass. | Live identity-distribution service. It does not establish England PDS API compatibility or a complete NHAIS replacement. |
| NIDIS Phase 2 | BSO's programme page describes modernising GP registration; its February 2026 procurement notice explicitly links NHAIS replacement to this phase. | Planned replacement, go-live not verified. “May 2026 at the earliest” was the notice's forecast, not a completed milestone. |
| NHAIS continuity and screening | The notice seeks maintenance from April 2026 to March 2027, with two optional annual extensions, and says no cervical-screening replacement date is set. | Continuity provision. A support procurement is not proof that every function remains unchanged until its end date, or that every NHAIS function moves into NIDIS. |
The 2025 Caché licence procurement establishes InterSystems's role in NHAIS. It does not establish the database or supplier behind NIDIS, or prove an InterSystems role after a particular function migrates.
Additional GP Connectivity Functions
The 29 September 2026 review separates GP core services from encompass's Trust record. Use the matrix's access, registration and GP transactions, safety, prevention and care planning, and coding, reporting and payments sections for comparison.
General practice remains outside core encompass scope. EpicCare Link's defined referrals, test requests and messages concern Trust workflows; My Care's nidirect login and secondary-care information do not supply the patient's GP record or GP appointment service. Separately, nidirect's GP online guidance describes practice-account access to appointments and repeat prescriptions, with availability controlled by the practice; some practices offer no online service. This does not establish England GP Connect or a general GP clinical-write API.
| Function | Northern Ireland route and evidence boundary |
|---|---|
| Registration | NIDIS Phase 1 provides HCN/demographic distribution. GP-registration replacement is Phase 2; acceptance remains unverified. Keep the registration and NHAIS continuity evidence distinct from login, clinical viewing and GP2GP transfer. |
| Vaccination | PHA's professional vaccination resources identify VMS for recording, booking and coverage monitoring. This is a NI service, not evidence of England vaccination API adoption. |
| Child health | PHA names the Northern Ireland Child Health System as the source of childhood/HPV coverage data. Its August 2024 board papers anticipated child-health migration into encompass in May/June 2025. That forecast does not establish completed migration or every downstream interface; retain the distinction between reporting provenance and operational applications. |
| Screening | The February 2026 NHAIS support notice gives no cervical-screening replacement date. Registration modernisation and Trust encompass rollout do not establish completed replacement of screening call/recall. |
| Care plans and flags | ECS/KIS are documented GP-summary routes through NIECR, with current feeds requiring the transition caveat. A national child-protection or reasonable-adjustment API equivalent is unverified in this evidence set. |
| Terminology | BSO's Regional Coding Programme plans consistent SNOMED CT/ICD-11 use and regional terminology-server procurement. The future-facing description does not establish completed universal adoption. |
| Quality extracts and payments | GPIP/QOF replaced PCAS on 1 July 2022. The DoH detailed user guidance, pp.4–5, describes supplier-generated extracts, manual returns and payment calculations using practice aggregates. It supersedes the undated overview still naming PCAS; this is not a patient-level record-access service. |
An evidenced export of NI technology is FPPS provision to NHS Wales. The November 2025 Audit Wales report, pp.8–9, identifies NI BSO as developer/provider under a service agreement with a Welsh-specific environment. It establishes provenance and Welsh use, not the complete current NI payment workflow. See what actually crosses borders.
Urgent Care Routing
The 29 September 2026 review finds Trust Phone First services and separate GP out-of-hours routes, with no verified launch of a single regional 111 service. In a 9 February 2026 ministerial answer, the Health Minister explicitly distinguished the existing fragmented Phone First services from a regional NHS 111-like service. The Assembly's May motion called for proposals by September 2026; it did not confirm deployment. See the four-nation urgent-care matrix.
| Layer | Northern Ireland route and evidence boundary |
|---|---|
| Public access and assessment | Phone First offers telephone clinical assessment before a possible non-life-threatening ED attendance. SPPG lists all five Trusts, but numbers, hours and receiving sites vary. It can advise, arrange an appropriate attendance or direct a person to ED, urgent care, minor injuries, general practice or pharmacy. It does not replace 999. |
| GP out-of-hours | Separate area-specific phone contacts provide assessment when the daytime practice is closed, followed by advice, a clinician encounter or onward referral. Phone First and GP OOH are related pathways, not interchangeable service names or one universal number. |
| Online advice and mental-health support | nidirect health A–Z, the children's symptom checker and SPPG's symptom-resource page provide navigation; they do not establish an England 111 online transaction service. Lifeline is a separate NI-wide 24/7 crisis-response helpline. |
| Directories and onward booking | The 2022 urgent-care consultation's No More Silos standards call for current provider directories, clinical workflow support and direct referral/booking. Southern Trust separately reports Phone First and GP referrals into Daisy Hill's urgent care centre. These establish policy and a named route, not a single live regional directory API or England DoS implementation. |
| Clinical handoff technology | BSO's 2020/21 annual report records Adastra changes supporting Phone First and CCG development for GP referrals into urgent care, rapid assessment and ED. This is historical implementation evidence. Current transport specifications and site coverage remain unverified; it does not establish BaRS, NHS Pathways or encompass/EpicCare Link as the Phone First backend. |
Use the receiving Trust's current guidance for operational scope. SPPG's central page still describes Belfast as adults-only, while Belfast Trust's own current ED guidance includes the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. Southern's current contacts page gives 9am–9pm weekday Phone First hours, while an older pilot FAQ still says 9am–6pm. Western publishes 8am–midnight, seven days a week. These differences prevent treating a central directory extract as a uniform 24/7 service contract.
Regional 111 proposals, directory development, clinical assessment, booking acceptance and result/document return each need separate deployment evidence. A familiar product name or an existing EpicCare Link referral function does not establish this urgent-care integration.
Laboratory Results and Image Exchange
CoreLIMS and NIPACS+ are distinct regional diagnostic systems that connect into the wider record environment. BSO's March 2026 statement confirms the CoreLIMS rollout with Clinisys. Its NIPACS+ pages describe radiology and additional imaging specialties, with the final Western and Southern Trust Phase 2 go-lives in May 2025. The 25 June 2026 closure announcement names Sectra and describes transition to routine operations in July.
EpicCare Link's imaging-request function is an access workflow; it is not the image archive itself. Similarly, a laboratory result visible in a care record is not evidence that the record platform supplied the laboratory system. These distinctions matter when attributing InterSystems, Epic, Clinisys or Sectra roles.
The NIPACS+ privacy notice, v1.0 approved June 2024, distinguishes RIS pathway management, PACS image distribution/display and VNA archiving. It explicitly includes imaging reports as well as images (pp.3, 6 and 11). This establishes the report-versus-image scope; use the separate programme evidence above for deployment status.
Portals and Record Access
The portal determines which parts of a record a person can see and which actions they can take. The underlying record system and the access application are therefore separate entries.
| Application and audience | Source information and features | Access and availability |
|---|---|---|
| encompass — HSC staff | Regional Epic record for documenting and delivering Trust health and social care. It is an operational clinical system, not only a record viewer. | Authorised staff access for their work; all five Trusts live by May 2025. General practice's own clinical systems remain outside core programme scope. |
| EpicCare Link — GPs and other approved professionals | Primarily encompass information: admissions, discharges, emergency and outpatient encounters, referrals and some results. Record viewing is read-only, with defined actions such as referrals and imaging requests. | Professional portal, not public access. New accounts go through a Site Administrator. The July 2025 service page confirms the access route and limited actions. |
| My Care — patients and approved proxies | Website and MyChart mobile app presenting an available subset of encompass information: health summaries, appointments, letters and released results; secure care-team communication and selected self-service functions. | Optional and free; the patient must have a record in encompass and use a nidirect account to register. Secondary care includes hospital and community services. The May 2026 page retains GP-record and GP-result exclusions. |
| NIECR — authorised care professionals | Aggregated records from existing systems, with some information recorded directly. Historical information not transferred into encompass has a distinct transition role. | BSO still publishes NIECR service and pharmacy-access information. The final archive, retirement date and current feed coverage are not established by those references. |
Professional Viewing and Actions
“Read-only” describes EpicCare Link's access to the core record, not every available workflow. The DHCNI FAQ describes viewing, referrals and radiology orders. In Department of Health evidence on 26 June 2025, officials also described GPs ordering blood tests and receiving messages while being unable to write on the core system. These are defined professional functions; they do not establish identical permissions for every EpicCare Link user.
My Care Features and Permissions
| Feature | What the public guidance supports | Limit or planned availability |
|---|---|---|
| Record and result viewing | Published encompass information and released test results. | GP records, GP appointments, GP-requested results and pre-encompass historical information are excluded. Some results require clinical review before release; social-care records are a future addition without a published date. |
| Contact details | Patients can update their temporary address, mobile number and Trust-held email address. | Permanent address, home telephone number and surname changes go through the GP. The nidirect login email is separate. |
| Referrals and appointments | Eligible musculoskeletal physiotherapy patients can self-refer; selected appointment types offer scheduling, rescheduling, cancellation or earlier-slot offers. | MSK scheduling is being introduced service by service. This is not evidence that every appointment can be booked or changed online. |
| Proxy access | A proxy uses their own account. Adult access can allow clinical viewing, scheduling/messaging, or both. | Access requires the applicable patient or HSC-professional decision; it is not automatic for parents. Young people's own access requires a competence assessment, while proxy decisions for adults lacking capacity are made by HSC professionals. |
My Care does not replace traditional contact routes. Its patient-entered updates and requests should not be described as unrestricted editing of the clinical record.
GP Summaries and Document Delivery
nidirect's NIECR guide identifies Emergency Care Summary (ECS) medicines/allergies from GP records and Key Information Summary (KIS) care information shared through NIECR. These are documented GP-summary routes. The undated guide does not establish complete current feeds after encompass rollout; retain the transition limit below rather than label the summary function absent.
Electronic Document Transfer (EDT) carries hospital/secondary-care correspondence to GP practices. BSO's September 2025 Docman10X transparency notice describes most such correspondence arriving through EDT, with paper/scanning for other routes. It supports this HSC-wide document workflow, not a general-purpose messaging service or completed Docman10X rollout. EpicCare Link's separately documented messages are a different workflow.
NIECR Transition
BSO's November 2023 optometry guidance directed professionals to EpicCare Link for information from Trusts live on encompass, retaining NIECR for legacy information pending an archive solution. It warned that occasional results still arriving in NIECR should not be treated as a complete feed of current Trust information. All five Trusts subsequently went live on encompass in May 2025.
The BSO Pharmacy Portal, updated 5 August 2026, still provides NIECR access and support information. This supports a continuing published access route, but does not confirm the archive's completion, a final decommission date or which current clinical feeds remain. The 2023 migration guidance should therefore be read as a dated transition design, not a statement that NIECR has already been retired.
GP Connect-Like Routes
| Northern Ireland route | Closest England comparison | What it supports | Boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record | Shared clinical record / summary access comparison | Secure access to information from multiple HSC organisations, including a documented legacy-record transition role. | Current BSO access references do not establish complete feed coverage or final archive/decommission status. |
| encompass | Shared care record / EPR platform comparison | Regional single digital care record across HSC Trusts, with all Trusts live by May 2025 in current public evidence. | General practice is outside core programme scope; GPs can still access Trust information through EpicCare Link. |
| EpicCare Link | GP and professional access comparison | Professional record viewing plus defined requests and referrals; see permissions. | Not GP Connect Access Record; access is to encompass content, not GP practice record APIs. |
| My Care | Patient-facing portal comparison | Patient and approved proxy access, communication and selected self-service actions over encompass information. | GP records, GP-arranged tests and pre-encompass historical information are excluded; social-care records are not yet displayed. |
| GP2GP under GP IT Modernisation | GP2GP record-transfer comparison | Electronic transfer of patient notes / records between GP practices or clinical systems when a patient moves practice. | Not GP Connect Access Record, not encompass, and not current InterSystems proof. |
| ePharmacy programme | EPS / medicines exchange comparison | Electronic prescribing and medicines-service direction for Northern Ireland, now framed by BSO as a multi-project programme running through the 2030s. | Programme direction; implementation details require current BSO / Department of Health evidence. |
Spine-Like Routes
| Northern Ireland route | Closest Spine service function | What it supports | Boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health and Care Number | NHS Number / PDS identity function | Northern Ireland patient identifier equivalent to NHS Number. | Archive definition should be paired with current digital identity-service sources. |
| Northern Ireland Digital Identity Service (NIDIS) | PDS / patient-demographics distribution comparison | Live HCN and demographic distribution, with a patient viewer and application APIs; GP-registration modernisation is Phase 2. | Actual interfaces are evidenced, but not England PDS API compatibility. |
| NHAIS / Caché licensing | GP-registration application infrastructure | NHAIS uses Caché; registration replacement and screening continuity have separate evidence and dates. | InterSystems Caché licensing is not a care-record or GP Connect-equivalent service. |
| encompass / EpicCare Link / My Care | Shared record and access platform | Regional record access for HSC Trust care and associated professional/patient portals. | Epic/encompass context, not NHS England Spine. |
| ePharmacy programme | EPS / medicines exchange function | Electronic prescribing and medicines-service programme. | Not England EPS; current programme detail should be checked. |
InterSystems Boundary
Northern Ireland has direct InterSystems evidence only for Caché / NHAIS licensing in this evidence set, tracked on InterSystems in Northern Ireland. The current evidence does not show InterSystems involvement in the HSC network, GP2GP, encompass, EpicCare Link, My Care, NIDIS, CoreLIMS, NIPACS+ or ePharmacy. National infrastructure, named product suppliers and local interfaces require separate attribution.
Domain Split Trigger
The 15 September 2026 structure decision adds a whole-UK reader overview and England/diagnostic drill-downs. This country page remains the detailed national-service route; supplier evidence stays on the InterSystems-by-nation page. No additional evidence-domain register or request pack is needed.
Useful Links
- BSO Northern Ireland Digital Identity Service
- February 2026 NHAIS maintenance and support notice
- BSO NIPACS+ programme and go-live sequence
- BSO NIPACS+ closure announcement, June 2026
- BSO CoreLIMS and Clinisys regional rollout, March 2026
- DHCNI encompass
- DHCNI EpicCare Link
- DHCNI My Care
- My Care patient FAQ, September 2025
- My Care proxy-access guide
- My Care MSK scheduling guide
- BSO NIECR programme
- nidirect Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record
- Department of Health digital identity service
- BSO GP IT Modernisation Programme
- BSO ePharmacy Programme
- Find a Tender NHAIS Caché licences
Follow-up Evidence
- Establish NIECR's final archive/decommission decision and remaining current feeds; retain the distinction between the 2023 transition design and continuing 2026 access references.
- Establish NIDIS Phase 2 acceptance and the remaining NHAIS screening functions separately; retain the February 2026 forecast until a completed milestone is documented.
- Add current NIDIS interface/access specifications, ePharmacy project go-lives and the relevant EpicCare Link role permissions where required for an actual connection; the public portal guidance already establishes the general access route and limited actions.
- Recheck whether general practice or primary care enters encompass scope in future DHCNI roadmap material, and whether any GP2GP supplier evidence names InterSystems rather than only BSO / HSCNI programme intent.