Safe and reliable health and social care depends on access to, and use of, information that is accurate, valid, reliable, timely, relevant, legible and complete.

Currently there is no standardised national dataset to describe a procedure that can be used in patient summaries. The development of a national standard for procedures can help to standardise how a procedure is recorded and can facilitate easier sharing of information within and between health and social care services. The national standard for procedures is part of a suite of standards that HIQA has developed to support the standardisation of national spatient summaries.