This is an advance warning of a minor breaking change we’re planning to make to the Healthcare Worker (HCW) FHIR API.
Currently, when you search for a healthcare worker, or for healthcare worker roles:
- if there is no matching healthcare worker in SDS, the API returns an HTTP status of 404 (‘not found’)
- if the matching healthcare worker is inactive, the API returns an HTTP status of 410 (‘gone’)
We need to change this because:
- it’s inconsistent with the FHIR standard
- we’re enhancing the API to be able to return multiple matches - so it doesn’t make sense to return a 410 (what if there is one active match and one inactive match?)
After we make this change:
- if there is no matching healthcare worker in SDS, the API will return an HTTP status of 200 with an empty FHIR Bundle
- if any of the matching healthcare workers are inactive, they will be treated as not matching - so if all the matching healthcare workers are inactive, the API will return an HTTP status of 200 with an empty FHIR Bundle
This is a breaking change.
If you have code that reacts to receiving a 404 or a 410 response, you’ll need to change it to react to receiving a 200 response with an empty Bundle.
We won’t be issuing a new version of the API for this change (we are still in beta, and breaking changes are allowed). Therefore, we recommend you alter your code to handle all possibilities:
- 404 response
- 410 response
- 200 response with empty Bundle
We’ll deploy this change:
- to the INT environment, no earlier than 4 September 2026
- to the production environment, no earlier than 2 October 2026
If you have any questions or concerns about this change, or the proposed deployment dates, please ask.