Treatment Function Codes

TFCs are used to record, report on, extract and flow activities undertaken, irrespective of the type of healthcare professional who performs them.

The Main Speciality Code is the specialty within which a consultant is recognised or contracted to the organisation and is usually aligned to specialities recognised by the royal colleges, faculties and the General Dental Council.

The Treatment Function and Main Speciality Standard covers the respective classifications.

The Treatment Function Maintenance Group is responsible for considering and approving requests for new and amended TFCs. However, meetings of the group are currently suspended as we consider the best way to run the group and maintain the Treatment Function and Main Specialty Standard in the future.

An option we are considering is to update the Treatment Function and Main Specialty Standard to allow the TFC request process to be run as a central function. This would enable future changes to codes to be made through a formal process on a continual basis.

There are no specific timescales for this work to take place at the moment, but we will provide updates via this webpage once any work is underway and new requests can be made.

The Treatment Function Maintenance Group (TFMG) acts as the expert reference group and are responsible for considering and approving change requests against the Treatment Function eligibility criteria. They review the Treatment Functions to make sure they continue to be clinically relevant.

This group is made of people who work within NHS trusts and NHS England.

Any proposed changes to Treatment Functions will need to be agreed by the TFMG using the Treatment Function eligibility criteria.

The Treatment Function and Main Specialty Standard was accepted as an information standard by the Data Coordination Board (DCB) in March 2020 and an Information Standards Notice (ISN) was published on 2 April 2020.

The ISN required that providers be fully conformant with the standard from 1 April 2021.

The ISN includes documents to assist care providers and system suppliers in implementing the Treatment Function and Main Specialty Standard, such as implementation guidance.