NICE Taxonomy (subject encoding scheme)

The NICE taxonomy is a classification scheme providing a consistent language across NICE to support website navigation and the efficient search and retrieval of information. NICE uses it to classify all website content, including NICE guidance.

The taxonomy covers:

• illness and conditions
• public health topics
• treatments and procedures
  • including drug treatments, diagnostic therapeutic and surgical procedures
• people and populations
• health specialities
• settings

It currently contains 1400 terms, including synonyms. All terms are hierarchically arranged under 10 top level terms (5 of them are listed above). The taxonomy is multi-hierarchical, which means a term can appear in more than one place in the hierarchy.

The taxonomy is updated monthly and the latest version is below.