Notes:
ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY is the same as ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY CODE.

A PATIENT who is an Overseas Visitor does not qualify for free NHS healthcare and can choose to pay for NHS treatment or for private treatment. If they pay for NHS treatment then they should be recorded as NHS PATIENTS.

The PATIENT's ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY may change during an episode or spell. For example, the PATIENT may opt to change from NHS to private health care. In this case, the start and end dates for each new ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY PERIOD (episode or spell) should be recorded.

If the ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY changes during a Hospital Provider Spell the ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY (ON ADMISSION) is used to derive the 'Category of PATIENT' for Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).

ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY will be replaced with ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORY CODE, which should be used for all new and developing data sets and for XML messages.

Hospital Provider Spell is an ACTIVITY GROUP where the ACTIVITY GROUP TYPE is National Code 21 'Hospital Provider Spell'.

This data element is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
plural	ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORIES