Revised MDS

(for submission in 2009 and onwards)

This revised version of the Minimum Data Set has been developed to reflect the changing information needs since the introduction of the original MDS 11 years ago.  The revision was undertaken by the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool on behalf of the NCPC in 2005-7.  A series of workshops and pilot testing was undertaken before the final version of the forms was produced.  The intention is to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the activities of those providing specialist palliative care,  including advice given to other health care professionals and  to carers, and to include some of the less formal aspects of care given to patients.  There is also the opportunity to record the work not only of doctors and nurses, but also other team members such as physiotherapists and complementary therapists.

Format of the questionnaires
Each form has an accompanying Guide which follows the format of the questionnaires and gives more guidance on how a particular question is to be interpreted.   These Guides will be updated in the light of difficulties and queries which arise during the first years of use.

What should we be recording?
You will need to check that you are recording all the information required.  This may well be different from data you keep at present.  Telephone contacts and contacts with relatives and carers should be recorded, as should the work not only of doctors and nurses, but of other health professionals such as social workers and physiotherapists.

Which forms should we complete?
Many services provide care which falls outside their nominal remit.  For example health professionals working in an inpatient unit may visit patients in their own homes.  This should be recorded as a ‘home care’ consultation, using Section 3.  Consultations which take place in Day Care should be recorded, either as an outpatient consultation (see Section 6), or as a Day Therapy consultation (Section 2), as appropriate.  Detailed descriptions of ‘what to count where’ are included in each section of the Guides.

Teams providing an integrated service, at home and in the hospital, should complete both Section 3 and Section 4 – see Guides for further details on how to record.

When to use these forms?
Service providers should look at these forms and guides and update their systems so that they are ready to collect patient activity data from 1st April 2008 in line with the Revised MDS. NCPC will collect the data on these new forms in April 2009 (for the year 2008/09).

Further information
If you have any questions about the forms or the Guides, or can suggest ways in which the Guides be improved to make them clearer, please do contact Adrian Jones via email at mds@ncpc.org.uk or by phone on 020 7697 1520.

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