Inside research seminar - Identifying inequalities in health and care: the power of health data

The series provides a space to exchange knowledge, personal experience, information, learning and ideas, and to make new connections.

In this seminar, researchers and members of the public involved in ARC South London's work will show how they are using health data analysis to identify inequalities in health and social care.

Presentations on applied informatics research

After a short introduction, there will be two presentations from the ARC’s South London's applied informatics team who aim to provide evidence to inform the adoption of digital innovations into health and social care practice and evaluate their effect. These will be:

• Applying digital tools to improve physical healthcare in a mental health trust: a collaborative approach with Dr Dipen Patel, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, clinical research fellow in psychosis studies, King’s College London, Lana Samuels and Katherine Barrett, patient and public involvement members in applied informatics, and members of ARC South London’s Public Research Panel. They will present a summary of the collaborative approach taken to develop, test and evaluate a novel digital tool which aims to improve the clinician-led management of physical healthcare in patients in a secondary care setting. They will describe the journey taken in developing a computerised system which has the ability to automatically alert clinicians of patients in secondary mental healthcare, with guideline-based recommendations for diabetes monitoring and management.
• Using applied informatics to investigate and monitor the Covid-19 response in mental health and hospital services in south London with Dr Rebecca Bendayan, MRC / NIHR research fellow, NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre Dr Rebecca Bendayan, MRC / NIHR research fellow, NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre and Dr Sarah Markham, visiting researcher, King's College London. Dr Bendayan will present an overview of the collaborative efforts to investigate physical health data in mental health services in south London and how these efforts facilitated a rapid and collaborative response to Covid-19 in March 2020. Results of these collaborative efforts across services were included in HDR UK reports and recommendations for the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Dr Markham will present a linked account of patient and public involvement in this research and experience of being involved in a Living Systematic Review of Covid-19 mental health research.

After the presentations, there will be a Q&A session. Dr Mark Ashworth, reader in primary care, King’s College London will also discuss how health data is protected. 

There will then be an opportunity to discuss in small groups some of the questions and issues highlighted.

The seminar will be chaired by Professor Fiona Gaughran, the ARC's applied informatics lead and professor of physical health and clinical therapeutics at King's College London. Professor Gaughran is also lead consultant psychiatrist at the National Psychosis Service and director of research and development at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Find out  more and book your place

View the full programme 

For any enquiries, please email michele.harris-tafri@kcl.ac.uk or nick.sarson@kcl.ac.uk

Please note: payments will be made to public members who participate as presenters at this event.