Connected Health Cities: Data linkage of urgent care data
Research type
Research Database
IRAS ID
215818
Contact name
Suzanne Mason
Contact email
Research summary
Connected Health Cities: Data linkage of urgent care data
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0234
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jun 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
The aim of The University Of Sheffield (UOS) Connected Health Cities (CHC) study is to build a large unique research database of urgent and emergency care (UEC) data for the Yorkshire and Humber region. Routine NHS data will be collected from a number of providers of UEC services including the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, NHS111, NHS Hospital Trusts and out of hours services and linked together to allow the EUC services to be viewed as a whole system, enabling demand on the system by patients to be analysed as well as the flow of patients through the system.
Identifiable data will need to be used in the first instance to enable linking records together from the different UEC services. This will include patient name, NHS number, date of birth, date of death and postcode. Only the minimum amount of data that is necessary to undertake the linkage will be collected and this will be encrypted prior to being electronically sent to The UOS CHC team using a secure file transfer service. As soon as possible after being linked and validation of data linkage (i.e. ensuring linkage of records has been undertaken correctly), all identifiers will be securely deleted and replaced with unique identifying numbers.
Research programme
The research database will directly benefit NHS organisations, commissioners, clinicians, researchers and NHS England, both in the Yorkshire and Humber region and nationally due to it being such a rich and unique source of information. The outcomes of work by these individual organisations and users will be used to identify areas within the UEC system that can be improved allowing targeted interventions, ultimately benefiting patients.
Research database title
Connected Health Cities: Data linkage of urgent care data
Establishment organisation
University of Sheffield
Establishment organisation address
CURE; ScHARR
Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA