Main procedures and interventions: summary

The main procedures and interventions: summary tables group together broadly associated procedure and intervention codes to provide a quick reference summary for the otherwise extremely detailed main procedure and intervention field.

The codes, normally covering a range, are at a 3-character level that consists of a letter followed by two numbers and are accompanied with a complete description of the procedure or intervention group.

Special notes

In this table, the same procedure or intervention will often be included in more than one grouping. For example, in the summary tables until 2005-06, 'AA1 Excision of lesion of tissue of brain' (OPCS-4 code A02) appears not only separately, but also within the groupings 'AA Tissue of brain' (OPCS-4 codes in the range A01 to A10) and 'A Nervous System' (OPCS-4 codes in the range A01 to A84).

Procedure and interventions are recorded using OPCS-4. During 2006-07, the version of OPCS used to record procedures and interventions in HES changed from OPCS-4.2 to OPCS-4.3. Further revisions were made in 2007-08 bringing us to version 4.4. All codes that were in OPCS-4.2 & 4.3 remain in OPCS-4.4, new codes were added to reflect changing clinical practice.

Responsible statistician

The responsible statistician for this publication is Chris Dew, HES/SUS Analysis (Service) Section Head (enquiries@ic.nhs.uk, 0845 300 6016).

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