Medical Record Linkage

TEDS would like to access information about your health by linking to your official NHS records. Data linkage is the process of linking information in your electronic health records to your questionnaire data held by TEDS.

Data linkage provides information that it is difficult to collect with questionnaire data. For example, the precise type of medication you may have been given in the past.

For more information about how data linkage in TEDS works, please read our information leaflet (above) or watch our animation video. 

Taking part in every aspect of TEDS is completely voluntary. If you change your mind about taking part in medical record linkage, please let us know by emailing teds-project@kcl.ac.uk or calling on 0800 317029.

Please contact us or return the information so that we are aware that it has not reached the intended recipient.

If a twin wishes to opt out of TEDS plans for medical record linkage, they much contact us themselves.

You have been included in this mailing because any NHS records that exist from before you moved abroad would still be very useful for our research. Even if you moved when you were very young!

For more information on our Data Access Policy please see this page of our website.

For more information about how we keep your data safe, please visit the following pages:

• King’s College London Use of Personal Data in Research policy.
• The South London and Maudsley GDPR policy.
• The NHS Patient information and health care in research.

Trusted research environments (TREs) are highly secure digital environments where linked data can be processed, stored and analysed. All TEDS using medical records will take place within the TREs and no data can leave these digital locations, which work a bit like a secure reading library. The NHS has requested for TREs to be used as the default for research as this will bring meaningful public safeguards around data use.

More information can be found on TREs on the Health Data Research UK website.

The UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (LLC; https://ukllc.ac.uk/about/) is a national collaboration which combines data from national cohort studies (such as TEDS) in a trusted research environment. The UK LLC trusted research environment is able to store both study data (such as the TEDS questionnaires) and linked records (such as NHS linked records). All data stored in the UK LLC have had personal identifiers removed. The data always remain in the trusted research environment and are only accessible to approved and trusted researchers for research recognised to be in the public good.

The UK LLC started in 2020 as part of the COVID-19 Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing National Core Study, to support researchers to answer questions about the health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The UK LLC has recently entered a new phase, extending their purpose to support any research in the public good. Longitudinal study data and linked records in the UK LLC can now be used to ask more general questions about health, social and economic experiences beyond the pandemic.

Find out more on the UK LLC website:

• The UK LLC: About us.
• The UK LLC: Privacy Policy.

Yes! You can decide not to provide access to your medical records and remain part of TEDS.

You can opt-out by returning your opt-out decision form or emailing the study team (teds-project@kcl.ac.uk). If you opt-out, you will not be included in medical record linkage in the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (LLC). You will still be part of TEDS unless you decide to withdraw from the study, which you can do at any time, without giving a reason.