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 |