nhs-dmd 0.2.4b0

For handling data from the NHS DM+D, along with general prescription parsing

DMD database

A Python toolkit for building the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (DM+D) XML distribution files into a relational database. It provides an SQLAlchemy 2 ORM, CLI scripts for building single-version and multi-version warehouse databases, and a query API for looking up medicines by name, ID, or ingredient.

There is online documentation for dmd.

Please note, this is for research purposes only and was built to map prescriptions from sources such as CPRD and the UK BioBank. Please do not use for any healthcare related implementation.

Installation

Using pip

Install from a local clone for development:

git clone [e-mail]:cfinan/dmd.git
cd dmd
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Using conda

A conda package is available in the cfin channel for Python 3.11--3.13 (Linux-64):

conda install -c cfin -c conda-forge dmd

Usage

Command line

Build a DM+D database from the NHS TRUD zip archives:

dmd-build -v -B nhsbsa_dmdbonus_<version>.zip nhsbsa_dmd_<version>.zip ~/dmd.db

More information on DM+D can be found on the NHS digital TRUD site. You will need an account to subscribe and download.

For full CLI help:

dmd-build --help
dmd-warehouse-build --help

Python API

import sqlalchemy
from dmd.build import build_dmd

engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("sqlite:///dmd.db")
sm = sqlalchemy.orm.sessionmaker(bind=engine)

build_dmd(
    sm,
    "nhsbsa_dmd_<version>.zip",
    bonus_zip="nhsbsa_dmdbonus_<version>.zip",
)

Schema

The final database will have the following schema (including bonus file). Open in a separate browser tab to make it larger.