Multicast Notification Service test event

This event allows subscribers to test their connectivity to the Multicast Notification Service (MNS) subscription API.

Overview

This event is sent every 15 minutes and allows subscribers to test their connectivity to the MNS subscription API.

Publisher: Multicast Notification Service (MNS)
Delivery mechanism: Multicast Notification Service (MNS)
Payload type: Notification (signal only)
Data retrieval: None
Specification: See OpenAPI (OAS) documentation

For general guidance on using MNS, refer to the MNS service page.

When should I use this event?

Use this event to:

Test that your delivery mechanism is setup correctly
Test your connection to the MNS API
Continually test your connectivity to MNS

How this event works

This event follows a notification and retrieval pattern:

An event is published every 15 minutes.
An event is sent to subscribed systems.
Your system receives the event.
You can confirm that your connectivity is valid

Event structure

This event is available in both FHIR and CloudEvents formats.

FHIR events are accessible to both internal and external subscribers.
CloudEvent format can be accessed by internal subscribers only

When a filter is present it doesn't mean that the data is available in the event - it allows filtering by that value, but the event itself is lightweight and contains no information about the change. To see the changed data, the consumer needs must retrieve the record.

CloudEvent	FHIR	Type	Mandatory	Cardinality	Description
specversion	n/a	String	M	1..1	Version of the schema
id	id	GUID	M	1..1	GUID - for this event
source	source	URI	M	1..1	Where it has come from
type	event-type	String	M	1..1	name of the event (always will be this value)
time	timestamp	Timestamp	M	1..1	Time of the event ISO 8601
subject	subject	String	M	1..1	NHS number of the patient
versionid	version-id	String	M	1..1	Change number from PDS

Example FHIR event

{
	"resourceType": "Bundle",
	"id": "b4eaba17-2e3a-495c-9b84-09428b09013f",
	"type": "history",
	"timestamp": "2020-06-01T13:00:00Z",
	"entry": [
		{
			"fullUrl": "urn:uuid:e961aa27-adbd-4a89-b406-1cc3759cf774",
			"resource": {
				"resourceType": "Parameters",
				"meta": {
					"profile": [
						"http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-subscription-status-r4"
					]
				},
				"id": "e961aa27-adbd-4a89-b406-1cc3759cf774",
				"parameter": [
					{
						"name": "subscription",
						"valueReference": {
							"reference": "https://api.service.nhs.uk/multicast-notification-service/subscriptions"
						}
					},
					{
						"name": "status",
						"valueCode": "active"
					},
					{
						"name": "type",
						"valueCode": "event-notification"
					},
					{
						"name": "notification-event",
						"part": [
							{
								"name": "event-number",
								"valueString": "1"
							},
							{
								"name": "timestamp",
								"valueInstant": "2020-06-01T13:00:00Z"
							},
							{
								"name": "focus",
								"valueReference": {
									"reference": "https://int.api.service.nhs.uk/mns-mock-hydration/FHIRR4Response"
								}
							}
						]
					},
					{
						"name": "additional-context",
						"part": [
							{
								"name": "event-type",
								"valueString": "mns-test-signal-1"
							},
							{
								"name": "source",
								"valueUri": "uk.nhs.multicast-notification-service"
							},
							{
								"name": "subject",
								"valueReference": {
									"identifier": {
										"value": "9912003888"
									}
								}
							}
						]
					}
				]
			},
			"request": {
				"method": "GET",
				"url": "https://api.service.nhs.uk/multicast-notification-service/subscriptions"
			},
			"response": {
				"status": "200"
			}
		}
	]
}

CloudEvent example

{
    "specversion": "1.0",
    "id": "e961aa27-adbd-4a89-b406-1cc3759cf774",
    "source": "uk.nhs.multicast-notification-service",
    "type": "mns-test-signal-1",
    "time": "2020-06-01T13:00:00Z",
    "dataref": "https://int.api.service.nhs.uk/mns-mock-hydration/FHIRR4Response",
    "subject": "9912003888"
}

Event filtering

This event is designed to test connectivity and therefore doesn't have any filters.

Onboarding

To subscribe to this event, you will need to:

Complete onboarding for MNS
Configure an endpoint to receive event notifications
Use the Subscription API to create a subscription

Refer to Subscribe to Multicast Notification Service for further guidance.

Versioning

This is the first version of this event.

Testing

This event itself is used for testing and is sent every 15 minutes.

Last edited: 24 April 2026 4:34 pm