On 1 July 2026, every software supplier on the NHS Assured Solutions List must meet the Minimum Operational Data Standard (MODS). If your supplier does not certify in time, they lose their assured status, and you are left running a non-assured system. This guide explains what MODS is, what data it covers, which suppliers have already certified, and what you should be doing now.
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MODS stands for Minimum Operational Data Standard. Its formal reference is DAPB4102. The Digitising Social Care programme published it on 1 April 2025. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England commissioned it jointly.
The standard took four years to develop, with input from across the adult social care sector. Its purpose is straightforward. It defines a baseline set of data that every Digital Social Care Record system must collect the same way. Without that consistency, information cannot flow reliably between care homes, GPs, hospitals, and local authorities. MODS creates the shared language that makes interoperability possible.
MODS applies to all CQC-registered adult social care providers using an assured DSCR. That includes care homes, supported living services, home care providers, and any other CQC-regulated service. If you use a system from the NHS Assured Solutions List, MODS directly affects you.
The full MODS specification is published on the DiSC Data Catalogue (dataset reference 86081). It defines a set of data items, definitions, and associated value sets across nine core categories:
Behind these categories sits a supporting glossary of 405 key terms. MetadataWorks contributed to the standard's development. The work analysed 24 existing standards and documented 381 glossary definitions. It reviewed 24,919 data concepts and established 42,489 mappings. This is not a lightweight checklist. It is a detailed data architecture designed to make social care records interoperable with NHS systems.
The deadline is 1 July 2026. Every DSCR supplier on the NHS Assured Solutions List must demonstrate MODS compliance by that date. The official MODS assurance tool is the route, and it sits in the NHS Confluence space.
For care providers, the implications are serious. If your software supplier loses assured status:
It is worth being clear about what the deadline is and is not. MODS compliance is a supplier-side obligation, not a direct statutory requirement on care providers themselves. The deadline is contractual, tied to the terms of the Assured Solutions List. The practical effect on a provider is the same either way. Your supplier fails to comply, your system's status changes, and you carry the consequences. For a broader view of the care home software regulations in the UK, see our dedicated guide.
As of May 2026, one supplier has publicly confirmed MODS certification:
The following major suppliers are on the Assured Solutions List and must certify by 1 July 2026. None had publicly confirmed certification at the time of writing, though some may have certified without making a public announcement:
The official verification mechanism is the MODS assurance tool on NHS Confluence and the Assured Solutions List maintained by the DiSC programme. If you want to check your supplier's status, start at the Assured Solutions List or contact the DSCR enquiries team at england.dscr.enquiries@nhs.net.
MODS does not change CQC inspection criteria directly. CQC inspectors do not check whether your software is MODS-compliant. But MODS underpins the evidence framework that CQC will increasingly expect to see.
The CQC Single Assessment Framework targets full implementation in Q4 2026. It includes digital capability and data governance under the Well-Led key line of enquiry. Inspectors are looking for evidence that care is being planned and delivered systematically, with records that are accurate, up to date, and accessible. A MODS-compliant system supports this by ensuring care plans, medication records, risk assessments, and observations are all recorded in a structured, consistent format. For a full breakdown of what inspectors look for in digital records, see our guide to CQC digital records requirements for care homes.
CQC has also set a target of 9,000 assessments published by September 2026. That means a higher probability of inspection than in recent years. Inspectors expect real-time, systematically recorded evidence, not retrospectively completed records. Using a MODS-compliant system means your data is structured in the way inspectors expect to find it.
MODS does not exist in isolation. It is one piece of a wider compliance framework that care homes must deal with. Understanding how the pieces connect is important.
The Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) is a separate but related requirement. CQC-registered providers must complete the DSPT to "Standards Met." The Health and Care Act 2022 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 now require it in law. DSPT is your obligation as a provider. It covers data governance, cyber security, and information assurance within your organisation. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our full guide to DSPT compliance for care homes.
MODS is your software supplier's obligation. It ensures the system you use records data in a standardised way. Both are needed for the framework to work. DSPT without MODS means you have good data governance but your system cannot share information consistently. MODS without DSPT means your system is interoperable but your organisation has not met its own security obligations.
The Data (Use and Access) Act became law on 19 June 2025. It amends Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and makes three things clear that matter for care homes:
The Act's provisions are being commenced in phases (Commencement No. 6 Regulations 2026 have already been made). The practical implication is that MODS compliance, currently a contractual requirement for assured suppliers, is on a trajectory toward becoming a statutory obligation. Providers who treat MODS as optional are betting against the direction of travel.
MODS is not an end in itself. It is a building block towards the NHS Single Patient Record. In that model a patient's medical and care history moves securely between all health and social care providers.
The Single Patient Record is currently in a "test and learn" phase. From 2028, patients should be able to view it on the NHS App. Social care data must therefore be structured to integrate with NHS systems. That means alignment with the NHS Data Dictionary and with FHIR standards.
For care home managers, the long-term implication is that your resident records will eventually be part of a wider connected record. A GP will be able to see relevant care home observations. A hospital discharge team will be able to view the care plan before a resident returns. This is not theoretical: it is the stated policy direction, now backed by legislation. MODS ensures your data is ready for that future.
If your care home uses (or is considering) a bespoke system built specifically for your operation, MODS creates both a challenge and an opportunity.
The challenge is that any bespoke system handling digital social care records needs to align with the MODS data structure. The nine data categories, the 405 glossary terms and the value sets do two things. They define the fields the system must support, and the format the data must take. This is a non-trivial technical requirement that must be designed in from the start, not bolted on afterward.
A bespoke system can be built around MODS compliance from the first day. It carries no legacy architecture, and no workaround layer of the kind some off-the-shelf suppliers are now retrofitting. A bespoke build implements the MODS data model natively. Its workflows capture data in the right format as part of normal care delivery. It also integrates directly with NHS interoperability standards, including FHIR, with no third-party middleware layer.
The key consideration is whether the system needs to appear on the Assured Solutions List. If you are building for a single care home group and not selling the software commercially, the assured status process may not apply directly. Alignment with MODS data standards is still advisable. It serves your CQC evidence requirements, and it matches the statutory direction of the Data (Use and Access) Act.
Our live care home demo opens without a login. It covers the MODS workflows in this article. Sign in as a nurse and see the MODS compliance built into the handover and notes. It is a working system, not a screenshot.
One figure above is worth reading twice. Building MODS took 42,489 mappings across 24,919 data concepts.
That is the cost of agreeing meaning between systems that were built separately. Each mapping is a rule stating that a field in one system means the same as a field in another. Somebody writes each one, and a wrong one passes a value the receiving system accepts. No error appears at the time.
MODS exists because the sector had no shared vocabulary. The standard supplies one, and every supplier must now map its own fields onto it.
We build care systems on engage.re, where meaning is held as data rather than in code. Your application declares every record type and field before it writes anything. The server then refuses a write outside that declaration, so a wrong meaning fails at the write.
Two consequences matter for MODS. Your definitions cannot drift away from your data, because the data cannot exist in a form the dictionary does not describe. Every concept also carries a permanent identifier, so two systems mean the same thing with no mapping between them.
We compare the four ways to record meaning in semantic layer, ontology or knowledge graph. We explain why FHIR and similar protocols move data without moving meaning in MCP and A2A move messages.
The deadline is two months away. Here is a practical checklist:
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