From December 2025, all publicly funded health and social care providers in England are legally required to record, share, and receive Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flags (RADF) for disabled service users. The deadline for full compliance is 30 September 2026.
This article explains what RADF is, what your organisation needs to do, and where Access Care Planning currently stands.
What is the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag?
Under the Equality Act 2010, care providers have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people can access services equitably.
The RADF is the NHS's digital way of recording and sharing this information.
A RADF record captures three things:
The adjustments a person needs when receiving care - for example, longer visits, easy-read information, or a carer being present
The person's impairments or disabilities, if they choose to share them
Their underlying conditions, if relevant
This information is held on the NHS National Care Records Service (NCRS) and is accessible to all health and care providers involved in a person's care.
Is this mandatory?
Yes. A new NHS Information Standard (DAPB4019) published in December 2025 makes this a legal requirement for all publicly funded providers. The deadline is 30 September 2026.
Providers who are not yet able to use their software to record and share RADF data can use the NHS NCRS online portal directly as a fallback.
What does my organisation need to do right now?
You should already have a process in place to identify and record the reasonable adjustment needs of your service users. If you are not doing this today, start now - it does not need to wait for a software update.
The NHS action checklist sets out six steps: identify, record, flag, share, meet, and review.
Steps one to five can be done using your current ACP setup, using care plan notes and assessments to capture adjustment information and make it visible to staff.
What is Access Care Planning doing?
We are actively working to deliver full RADF compliance within Access Care Planning ahead of the 30 September 2026 deadline. This includes:
A structured Reasonable Adjustment section on each service user record
A persistent visible flag across all pages of the case file
SNOMED CT coded impairments and adjustments, per the NHS dataset
Consent and objection management
Review date tracking with overdue alerts
FHIR API integration with NHS NCRS to send and receive RADF data
A read-only adjustment summary on the mobile app at the point of visit delivery
We have registered with NHS England and begun the technical onboarding process.
We will share further updates as development progresses.