Almost all stories shared on Care Opinion are linked to one or more local health/care services which the story is about. In turn, each of these services has its own page on Care Opinion.
Services are organised in a hierarchy, a bit like a family tree, so when we talk about all the services listed on Care Opinion, we call it "the service tree".
For a story to be published on Care Opinion it must be linked to one or more services on the service tree. This shows other site users where the story is about, and many staff on subscriptions are only alerted to stories linked to certain services
What is the service tree?
The service tree represents the entire health/care system on Care Opinion, and includes thousands of services. The services are organised in a hierarchy, so that each service has one parent and may have multiple children.
For example, in England:
- Cheltenham Birth Centre
- has the parent: Cheltenham General Hospital
- which has the parent: Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- which has the parent: NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board
- which has the parent: South West Commissioning Region.
For example, in Northern Ireland
- The Fracture Clinic
- has the parent: The Ulster Hospital
- which has the parent: South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust
- which has the parent: Health and Social Care Northern Ireland
You can navigate up and down the service tree, from child to parent or from parent to child, on the service pages for these services.
What are the services in the service tree?
The services in the tree represent a wide range of different things that make up the health/care system: health boards or ICBs, trusts, hospitals, clinics, general practices, community services and so on.
Every service in the tree has at least:
- a name
- a parent
- a type (hospital, clinic, ambulance service, health board, etc)
- a code which uniquely identifies the service
Most services will also have
- a location
- one or more treatment functions (sometimes called type of care)
Use the links in "More information" on the right to find out how to create or amend your service tree