Case study

Data access supporting Covid-19

Discover-NOW Hub supported Covid-19 research requests to support the national effort and focus on improving our understanding of this disease and the impact on our communities and healthcare sector.

Background

Discover-NOW Hub supported Covid-19 research requests to support the national effort and focus on improving our understanding of this disease and the impact on our communities and healthcare sector. A key element is ensuring that requests to access NWL’s De-identified Covid-19 linked dataset could be reviewed in a timely manner and with the appropriate rigour and governance. The COVID-19 NWL Data Prioritisation Group was established as a temporary solution to support this ambition. This governed group met weekly to review both operational and research requests to access the De-identified data for Covid-19 related issues.

COVID-19 Data Prioritisation Group

The Covid-19 Data Prioritisation Group ensured appropriate research access to the North West London Covid-19 dataset to ensure clinical priorities are met as part of the sector-wide response to Covid-19. North West London as part of the sector-wide response to Covid-19, created a Covid-19 specific De-identified data set which brings in data from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the region’s linked longitudinal data set. This new data set is hosted by WSIC and NIHR Imperial BRC in secure, high-performance environments.

To ensure that requests to access NWL’s Covid-19 De-identified linked data set were reviewed in a timely manner and with the appropriate rigour and governance a COVID-19 NWL Data Prioritisation Group was established.

This group meet weekly to review both operational and research related requests to access the De-identified data for Covid-19 related issues. This new agile mechanism ensured that the enriched data set could be used to answer Covid-19 operational questions and test research hypothesis in a timely way.

This review process compliments other work the Hub has been supporting in terms of expediting access to, and linkage of, priority data sets that has included near to real-time feeds from the NWL Pathology Labs, daily feeds from the five NWL Trusts at patient level in the form of the NHS England Sit rep report, Coordinate My Care flags, NHS Digital Shielded Population list and NHAIS population data.

Group membership

The group comprised of representatives from existing data access groups across NWL that represent the sector’s Data Controllers and Guardians.

Membership:

  • Sanjay Gautama – Consultant Anaesthetist & CCIO NWL Health and Care Partnership
  • Mr Erik Mayer (Consultant Surgeon, Clinical Senior Lecturer & Transformation Chief Clinical Information Officer)
  • Ms. Kavitha Saravanakumar (WSIC Director) or nominated Deputy (TBC)
  • Prof. Mark Thursz (Imperial BRC director)
  • Dr Richard Baxter (Co-chair of NWL Digital IG Governance Group)
  • Dr Ian Goodman (Chair Hillingdon CCG)
  • Mr Philip Robinson (Data protection Officer) or nominated Deputy (TBC)
  • Dr Tony Willis (Clinical Director for Diabetes for the North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)
  • Dr Axel Heitmueller (Managing Director ICHP, representing Gold Command)
  • Dr Bob Klaber (Consultant Paediatrician & Director of Strategy, Research & Innovation)
  • Prof. Graham Cooke (NIHR Research Professor)
  • Prof. Paul Aylin (Professor of Epidemiology & Public Health)
  • Prof. Jamil Mayet (Consultant cardiologist, Professor of cardiology)
  • Prof. Steve Brett (Consultant, Professor of critical care)
  • Dr Ceire Costelloe (Senior Lecturer & Director of Global Digital Health Unit)
  • Dr Georgina Russell (Consultant in Respiratory & General Medicine)
  • Mr Ben Glampson (Research Informatics Programme Manager, ICHT)
  • Dr Samantha Scholtz (Consultant psychiatrist, R&D Director for West London Mental Health Trust)
  • Dr David Bell (Reader, Brunel University London)
  • Dr Paul Craven (Head of Research Operations, NIHR Imperial BRC Manager)
  • Ms. Amanda Lucas (Programme Director ICHP, representing Discover-Now)
  •  Lay Partner, Barrie Newton 

North West London COVID-19 data repository

This NWL COVID-19 data repository was used as part of both operational and research related requests to access the De-identified data for Covid-19 related issues.

Data access requests were submitted via completion of the NWL Covid-19 Research Project Data Access Request Form which indicates which data environment below was relevant to the access request. This were then considered by the COVID-19 NWL Data Prioritisation Group and a response issued within a week.

NWL Covid-19 data prioritisation group project tracker

For transparency this tracker will capture details of projects that were approved by the COVID-19 NWL Data Prioritisation Group.

Project Name Project Lead Host Organisation Dataset Requested Clinical Sponsor Date Project Presented to Group Approval Date
1 COVID-19 Planning Support Clare Lyons-Amos Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea Councils WSIC De-Identified Houda Al Sharifi 08/05/2020 08/05/2020
2 RECAP (Remote COVID-19 Assessment in Primary Care): a learning system approach to develop an early warning score for use by primary care practitioners Professor Brendan Delaney Imperial College London WSIC De-Identified Dr Erik Mayer 08/05/2020 08/05/2020
3 The effect of COVID-19 on acute surgery in a tertiary UK healthcare setting: An interogation of routinely collected electronic healthcare record data James Kincross Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust ICHNT -COVID-19 Mr George Reese 15/05/2020 15/05/2020
4 The impact of COVID-19 induced patient flow reorganisation on hospital acquired infections and hospital acquired COVID-19: A network analysis Dr Ceire Costelloe Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Dr Bob Klaber 15/05/2020 15/05/2020
5 Evaluating and improving currently used early warning tools for predicting deterioration in patients with SARS-CoV-2: a causal inference approach using electronic patient records Dr Ceire Costelloe Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Professor Graham Cooke 15/05/2020 15/05/2020
6 COVID19RENAL: The Impact of COVID19 on Renal and Immunosuppressed Patients Dr Michelle Willicombe Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Dr Darren Parsons 15/05/2020 15/05/2020
7 COVID Gold Command Miss Tharshiya Packianathan NWL CCGs WSIC COVID-19 Dr Tony Willis 15/05/2020 15/05/2020
8 COVID ICU data analytics on treatment and therapy Dr Aldo Faisal Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Anthony Gordon 22/05/2020 22/05/2020
9 Hypertension, ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers in Covid-19: risk of infection and clinical outcomes Dr Bethan Davies Imperial College London WSIC COVID-19 / ICHNT -COVID-19 Dr Neil Chapman 22/05/2020 19/06/2020
10 The impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)/ COVID- 19 on Venous Thromboembolism Professor Alun Davies Imperial College Healthcare Trust WSIC COVID-19 Professor George Hanna 22/05/2020 22/05/2020
11 COVID-19 in Diabetes Patients Prof Edward Gregg Imperial College London WSIC COVID-19 Dr Tony Willis 22/05/2020 22/05/2020
12 Identifying shielded/vulnerable patients at risk of Covid-19 Sneha Jha Imperial College London WSIC COVID-19 / ICHNT -COVID-19 Erik Mayer 22/05/2020 22/05/2020
13 Understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on the provision of NHS health care and patient outcomes Prof Carol Propper Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Prof. Azeem Majeed 22/05/2020 22/05/2020
14 SAGE & BAME (ONS Request) Jonny Tinsley Office of National Statistics WSIC De-Identified Sanjay Gautama 05/06/2020 05/06/2020
15 The impact of COVID-19 on antibiotic prescribing in North West London Prof Paul Aylin Imperial College London WSIC COVID-19 / ICHNT -COVID-19 Professor Alison Holmes 05/06/2020 05/06/2020
16 EPISODES Study Dr Ruud Nijman Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Ian Maconochie 05/06/2020 05/06/2020
17 NHSE COVID-19 Machine Learning Dr Wayne Smith Imperial College Health Partners WSIC De-Identified Dr Jaymin Shah 05/06/2020 05/06/2020
18 Hillingdon CCG Recovery Plan – COVID Population Analysis Jagdeep Lamba Hillingdon CCG WSIC De-Identified Ian Goodman 05/06/2020 05/06/2020
19 A data-driven approach to support sector-wide resilience for healthcare delivery Mr Erik Mayer ICHT ICHNT -COVID-19 James Bird 19/06/2020 19/06/2020
20 Neurological and Psychiatric Manifestations of COVID-19 in NW London Dr Parashar Ramanuj Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital / Imperial College Health Partners WSIC De-Identified Dr Christopher Hilton 19/06/2020 19/06/2020
21 Investigating the effects of antiplatelet and anticoagulant medications on COVID-19 outcomes Dr Amit Kaura Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust / Imperial College London WSIC De-Identified Professor Jamil Mayet 26/06/2020 26/06/2020
22 Covid-19 beyond the Lung -risks for people living with serious mental illness Dr Stephen Orleans-Foli West London NHS Trust ICHNT -COVID-19 Dr Samantha Scholtz 07/08/2020 07/08/2020
23 COVID-ICU: Management of severe acute respiratory failure during the COVID-19 pandemic – A National Service Evaluation  Dr David Antcliffe  Imperial College London ICARE Dr Matthieu Komerowski  23/07/2020 23/07/2020
24 Investigating the incidence and impact of thrombocytopenia in COVID Dr Nichola Cooper Imperial College London ICARE Jane Apperley 07/08/2020 07/08/2020
25 Understanding the burden of severe infections in children in North West London Dr Ruud Nijman Imperial College London WSIC De-Identified Ian Maconochie 07/08/2020 07/08/2020
26 Life Years Lost to Covid-19 Dr Katharina Hauck Imperial College London WSIC COVID-19 / ICHNT -COVID-19 Dr Shevanthi Nayagam 07/08/2020 07/08/2020
27 Use of artificial intelligence applied to routine clinical and administrative healthcare data to identify people at risk of serious acute illness from COVID-19-related illness. Dr Benjamin Post Imperial College London ICARE / WSIC De-Identified Professor Stephen Brett 21/08/2020 21/08/2020
28 Investigating the effects of COVID-19 on different echocardiographic parameters Dr Tiffany Ng Imperial College London ICHNT -COVID-19 Professor Jamil Mayet 11/12/2020 11/12/2020