Read code

Read code

A clinical vocabulary developed in the UK that contains 110,000 concepts in its dictionary, which was created by the NHS based on clinical parameters and usage. Diagnostic, symptomatic and procedural data are stored by codes, but translated into text when accessed.

Read codes have become the de facto standard for coding diagnoses, operations, and procedures, signs and symptoms, and for all national minimum data sets and national statistics for the hospital and community health services in Britain. The system was begun in 1982 by Dr James Read, a UK GP who developed easily remembered codes for recording medical cases; Read codes complement or replace SNOMED.

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