The Bridging the Gap Study

Renalware is a database system that was developed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It includes patient records for people cared for by King’s Kidney Care and includes lots of information about medication, blood tests, investigations, dialysis, and transplants.

The Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) system has been developed for use at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.  It provides researchers with access to anonymised information (with any personal information removed, for example, name, date of birth, address) taken from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust’s electronic records system.

Previous research shows that kidney disease is more common in patients with mental health difficulties. We also know that while dialysis and kidney transplants are life-saving treatments, they are also demanding and often negatively impact the lives of kidney disease patients.

To better understand the link between kidney disease and mental health difficulties, we plan to combine health records data about mental health from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) CRIS system with information about kidney disease from Renalware.

This work will help us to work out the rates of mental health difficulties in people with kidney disease, and whether there are differences in health outcomes and access to healthcare between kidney patients with and without severe mental health difficulties (such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder). We hope the findings of this study will improve the support provided to kidney patients with severe mental health difficulties.

More information and opting out

To link Renalware with CRIS data, we will use identifiable information (NHS number, name, date of birth, and postcode). This linkage is legally permissible under the Health Research Authority’s support under Section 251 of the National Health Service Act 2006. This support allows temporary use of identifiers in a secure environment for accurate linkage. Once records are linked, all personal information (NHS number, name, date of birth, and postcode) will be destroyed.

If you have any questions or would like to notify us that you do not wish to have your records in Renalware and/or linked with the above datasets, please email [email protected] or use the contact details below.

Tel: 020 7848 0431

Address: Renal Rehab Research Team, Room 2.52, Weston Education Centre, 10 Cutcombe Road, London SE5 9RS