Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

A REFERENCE SET (refset) or VALUE SET is a list of defined terms to be used when recording a specific item of data. It can be visualised as a drop-down menu which allows you to select one (or more) pre-defined answers to a question.

Some refsets/value sets may allow multiple options to be selcted - for example, the Reasonable Adjustments flag, which offers 348 potential options (202 of which relate to language interpreters). They may also include an "Other" option which may in turn allow free text entry.

Refsets/value sets are an important element of data standards/structured data, as they allow content to be coded. This has benefits for data quality and consistency and for reporting and analysis.

The terms 'refset' and 'value set' are synonymous. FHIR standards tend to refer to 'value sets', whilst SNOMED CT and the NHS Data Dictionary tend to refer to 'refsets'.