South London and Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre Case Register
Research type
Research Database
IRAS ID
326477
Contact name
Robert Stewart
Contact email
Research summary
South London and Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre Case Register
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/SC/0257
Date of REC Opinion
1 Sep 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
The SLaM BRC Case Register allows a wealth of information on people receiving mental health care from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to be used for research. It does this through a computer program called CRIS which removes information such as names and addresses so that researchers are not able to identify people from their record. There are also a series of other security measures to ensure confidentiality and to protect the information contained on the Case Register. The information itself includes in-depth details from the health record including mental health symptoms and the context in which these have occurred, as well as treatments received and outcomes. Information from the mental health record has been successfully linked to other data sources. Patients have been centrally involved in designing and overseeing the use of the Case Register since its development.
Research programme
The purpose of the Case Register is to enable novel and effective research to be carried out into the causes of mental disorder as well as providing particularly important information on what happens to people with particular disorders – for example, how well they respond to treatment, and what treatments work best. The Case Register has been used by researchers for the last 15 years with great success and has been highlighted as an important national development in improving knowledge through studying information from health records. One example of research using this information resource has been studies which have demonstrated the high mortality and lowered life expectancy on average in people with serious mental health problems. Ongoing studies using linked records from general hospitals are providing valuable opportunities to investigate physical health outcomes more specifically in order that overall health inequalities can be identified and corrected.
Research database title
South London and Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre Case Register
Establishment organisation
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Establishment organisation address
Bethlem Royal Hospital
Monks Orchard Road
Beckenham
BR3 3BX