Healthcare Resource Group

Within the British National Health Service (NHS), a Healthcare Resource Group (HRG) is a group of health-related activities that have been judged to consume a similar level of resources.

For instance, there may be a number of different knee-related procedures that all require similar levels of clinical care and take a similar duration. They may all be assigned to one HRG.

The HRG system forms part of Payment by Results, an activity based costing and payment system being rolled out throughout the NHS from 2004.

HRG Coding

For every patient episode (a period of care under one consultant), the patient is assigned an HRG code according to a software system known as a Grouper.

An HRG code consists of 3 characters: One letter and two numbers (from 0-9).

The letter is called the 'Chapter', and corresponds to the area of clinical care that the HRG falls within. The chapters are listed here:

*A - Nervous System
*B - Eyes & Periorbita
*C - Mouth, Head, Neck & Ears
*D - Respiratory System
*E - Cardiac Surgery & Primary Cardiac Conditions
*F - Digestive System
*G - Hepato-biliary And Pancreatic Systems
*H - Musculoskeletal System
*J - Skin, Breast & Burns
*K - Endocrine & Metabilic System
*L - Urinary Tract & Male Reproductive Systems
*M - Female Reproductive System
*N - Obstetrics & Neonatal Care
*P - Diseases Of Childhood
*Q - Vascular System
*R - Spinal Surgery & Primary Spinal
*S - Haematology, Infectious Diseases, Poisoning
*T - Mental Health
*U - Undefined Groups