Skip to Main content

Help shape how information is recorded and shared across social care in Wales

20 October 2026

We want to hear what you think about new draft data standards which aim to make it easier to record and share information consistently across social care in Wales. 

Information is currently recorded in different ways across services and systems. This can make it harder to share, compare and use consistently when it’s needed.  

Minimum operating data standards are an agreed set of essential data items, definitions and terminology. They help create a consistent way of recording information, making it easier for people, organisations and systems to understand and use data when it needs to be shared.  

Example: What's the date? - click to expand

We can write a date in several different ways: 

  • 1 June 2028
  • 30-Nov-12
  • 07/04/2025 

Most of us would see these and quickly recognise them as a date. 

In the UK, we’d read the last of those dates as being 7 April. In the USA, they’d read it as 4 July, because the month comes first in American dates. 

This shows how easy it can be to confuse the meaning behind a piece of data if we don’t have a standard way of describing it.  

What if we all described dates as a four-number year followed by a three-letter month and a two-number day? 

The date above would be written as: 

2025-APR-07 

If everyone uses the same format then it makes sense to the machines (and people) that need to share this information with each other.  

In this case, we’ve also made sure that it’s difficult to get the date elements mixed up, because we’ve formatted them differently. The month now uses a three-letter format, rather than a number. We’ve created a standard way of describing a date, or a data standard. 

Not all data standards are as straightforward as this, but it helps show the kind of alignment that would need to happen across health and social care data. 

A data standard is a particular way of describing a piece of data. When we talk about data, it might help to think of it as a piece of information. 

We’ve developed a set of draft standards with people working across social care in Wales, including a writing group made up of practitioners, managers and data and digital specialists. The draft standards are based on real-world practice and experience, helping to make sure they reflect the realities of delivering and supporting social care services. 

We're working with BetterGov and Answer Digital to deliver this work. 

We're not trying to standardise every aspect of every system. We’ve focused on drafting standards for the information that’s most important to share.  

This next stage of the work is an opportunity for you to help shape the standards and make information easier to record, share and use across social care in Wales.

Tell us what you think

We’re now inviting your feedback on the draft standards. 

We’ve grouped the draft standards into 'use cases', which reflect different situations where information needs to be recorded and shared. We’ll publish these in three blocks for your feedback. 

The first feedback block is now open for responses and includes data standards relating to: 

  • front door – information about referrals to social care, such as a person's initial or subsequent contact with the front door to social care services  
  • hospital discharge – information needed to support a person’s safe and timely discharge from hospital into an appropriate care setting   
  • reablement – information needed to identify people who could benefit from reablement and support them to access a short-term reablement service  
  • case closure – information that needs to be recorded when a person’s social care record is formally closed. 

The first feedback block will close on 2 December. 

Whether you're a practitioner, manager, analyst, commissioner, digital professional or system supplier, we want to know: 

  • would these standards make it easier to share information when needed? 
  • do the draft use cases include the right information?  
  • are any of the names, definitions or options unclear or open to different interpretations?  
  • have we focused on the right priorities for social care data standards?  
  • is there anything else we should consider before the standards are finalised? 

You don't need to be a data expert to take part. If you use, record, manage or rely on information in social care, your experience and insight can help improve the standards. 

Share your feedback

Review the first block of draft data standards and tell us what you think.

What happens next?

The feedback we receive will be reviewed and used to refine the draft standards before they move to the next stage of development and approval.  

Your contributions will help make sure the standards are practical, relevant and reflect the needs of the sector. 

Find out more

For more information about this feedback exercise and the remaining feedback blocks, visit our data standards feedback page.  

If you’d like to know more about the background to this project, our Head of Strategic Data Programmes Owen Davies has written a blog about the work that’s been done so far. 

To learn more about the wider data standards programme, visit our data standards page, where you’ll also find a short explainer animation. 

We'll always do our best to explain this work clearly, but we understand that you may still come across some words or phrases that aren't familiar from time to time. If you do, you might find the word you’re looking for in our A to Z of data standards terms. 

If you have any questions about our work on data standards, please contact data@socialcare.wales.