Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d).
The NHS standard dictionary of medicines: the identifiers that let prescribing datasets join to each other.
The Dictionary of Medicines and Devices is the NHS's standard vocabulary for medicines. Every product sits in a hierarchy: the therapeutic moiety at the top, which is the drug itself, virtual medicinal products beneath it covering drug plus strength and form, then actual branded products and their packs.
It exists so that NHS systems agree on what a medicine is. For analysts it is the join key: SCMD codes to dm+d, EPD codes to the BNF hierarchy, and the mapping between the two is where quiet errors live. If a combined hospital and community picture looks odd, check the join before you question the medicine.
BNF code · The 15-character legacy hierarchy the NHSBSA uses to code prescribing data, from chapter down to individual presentation.
Secondary Care Medicines Data (SCMD) · Monthly hospital medicines data for England: what NHS trusts issued, in unit-of-measure quantities, with indicative costs.
English Prescribing Data (EPD) · The monthly NHSBSA dataset behind almost every NHS prescribing chart: every item dispensed in the community in England, by practice and presentation.
See it on a real molecule.
Every molecule page uses this term somewhere: in the scorecard, the charts or the honesty strip. The definitions live here; the numbers live there.