This paper describes a proposed European standard for the Registration of Coding Schemes used in electronic healthcare information exchange. The requirements for such a standard are outlined together with the manner in which the work to meet these requirements has been carried out. The paper includes a summary of the main points contained in the proposed standard and in the supporting documents delivered by the project team. The paper concludes with a report on the progress of this proposal towards acceptance as a standard and a brief comment on how it may influence other work in medical informatics standardisation.