This study will be a retrospective case review using existing clinical data from participating centres. To date there have already been 18,000 confirmed cases in Greater London. Our study design will aim to include patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic as well as new and current cases.
The study design requires data to be extracted from National Health Service (NHS) electronic and paper notes, which will contain patient identifiable information. For confidentiality, all patient identifiable data will only be collected by members of the direct care team. This data will be encrypted and stored in a local NHS trust computer at participating sites. In order to maintain confidentiality, all data will then be anonymised before being inputted on a data collection tool and spreadsheet. Therefore, research teams will only be provided with a de-identified dataset. This data will be transferred across to the study co-ordination centre, following NHS information governance rules for data to be compiled and analysed. At the co-ordination centre, this data will be stored in an Imperial College London computer, and will only be accessible to the research team.
