This quarter's Healthcare project doesn't seem to have got as much traction as the Schools one. Possibly due to the fact that there's isn't a single obvious data-source to employ, and there's little scope for arm-chair mapping.
I posted previously about a comparison tool I built for defibrillators at http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/defib/progress/ similar to the one I made previously for schools [1]. The data comes from the Easter Ambulance Service, and theirs is the only dataset I could find in a useful format. I've made FOI requests to a couple of other Ambulance trusts [2],[3], but they haven't got back to me yet. I've recently noticed that the General Pharmaceutical Council publish a list of registered pharmacies. I think this list should be complete (i.e. any dispensing pharmacy in Great Britain must be registered) so I've built a similar tool at http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/pharmacy/progress/ . (There's a similar Register for Northern Ireland, but the complete list isn't published.) I've asked for permission to re-use the information in the list to help improve OSM [4], but haven't had a response yet. I don't think any permission is needed to run the comparison, but it would be needed to use the information directly in OSM. (e.g. adding registration numbers, and using the address information). However, the tool can still be used at the moment to indicated possible places to survey. A few initial observations and tagging questions: 1/ I think it's interesting how relatively uniform our coverage of pharmacies is. 2/ There are a lot of pharmacies within supermarkets that aren't currently tagged in any way. Currently the tool will pick up pharamacy=yes, but I'm open to other options is there's a better way of adding this information to e.g. a shop=supermarket. 3/ There seem to be a number shops (particularly Superdrug stores) tagged as amenity=pharmacy that aren't on the register. I presume these are chemist / drug-store type outlets that do not have dispensing pharmacies. Do we want to agree on whether these should be tagged as shop=chemist or amenity=pharmacy + dispensing=no ? 4/ Should stores like larger Boots (which have a lot more besides the pharmacy counter and off-the-shelf medicines) be tagged as amenity=pharamcy or shop=chemist + pharmacy=yes, or something else, or should it depend on the individual store? Best wishes, Robert. [1] http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/schools/progress/ [2] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/public_access_defibrillator_loca [3] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/public_access_defibrillator_loca_2 [4] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re_use_request_for_register_of_p -- Robert Whittaker _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
