The National Children’s Bureau, Cambridge University, and King’s College London collaborate on multiple projects using the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS). CRIS was commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
The dataset enables researchers to undertake studies using information from the anonymised clinical records held by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The data covers 2007 to the present.
It can be used for quantitative analysis but also to identify and recruit participants for qualitative work, as it features a consent-to-contact register where service users may consent to be contacted for research.
What does the CRIS data set include and why is it so useful?
The dataset includes all information from referral, intake, risk assessment, clinical formulation, diagnosis, treatment, discharge, and interprofessional correspondence. Extensive longitudinal information is available beyond diagnoses. Regarding children and adolescent service users, for example, factors like school exclusions, self-harm, and safeguarding risks are available.
Some information is in structured fields, like sociodemographic information and clinical diagnoses. Other information is in unstructured fields, like interprofessional correspondence and therapist notes. Our collaborative research team works with both structured and unstructured data. As a result, the structured data is largely cleaned and ready to be used. We have also used the consent-to-contact register within CRIS to recruit service users – including children, adolescents, and adults – for qualitative interviews.
CRIS is a flagship resource. Because it is longstanding, it has better quality data and the granular aspect that national datasets do not have.
About the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) provides services to several London boroughs including Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, serving a population of approximately 1.2 million people. Additionally, SLaM delivers regional and national specialist mental health provision. This makes it one of Europe’s largest mental health services.
In 2007, funding from the NIHR supported the anonymisation of SLaM’s electronic healthcare records and their availability in the CRIS dataset for use by authorised researchers. It operates on an opt-out basis; data from 99% of patients is available for research. CRIS represents all SLaM care, including adult, child, and adolescent mental health provision.
Our collaborative research team works mostly with records from SLaM’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Recent estimates suggest that over 300,000 CAMHS patient records are accessible using CRIS. Approximately 20,000 new records are added each year.
Understanding diversity in the data
A major strength of the CRIS dataset is its diversity. We have compared the CRIS cohort of young people using Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to national averages and SLaM’s catchment area. CAMHS CRIS represents a more ethnically diverse population than the national population. For example, it includes more young people from black ethnic backgrounds. It also serves a more disadvantaged population, with over half of the young people in CRIS coming from the two most deprived IMD quintiles. Gender is fairly split in CAMHS CRIS, which is comparable to the national population.
Find out more about the diversity and representativeness of the CAMHS CRIS cohort