Research Assistant, CAMHS Digital Lab - INTERNAL ONLY

King's College London; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

King's College London seeks a Research Assistant to support the CAMHS Digital Lab's early-onset psychosis informatics programme and related platform work. You will move between routinely collected clinical data, NHS services and the Lab's tools, reviewing records to adjudicate diagnoses and medication histories while aiding data linkage and qualitative inquiry.

You will assist in participant recruitment, informed consent, and structured assessments; support the MyHealthE data-collection

Qualifications

• A first degree at 2:1 or above in psychology, developmental science, health, epidemiology or related field.
• An MSc in mental health studies, mental health research, epidemiology or related discipline.
• Experience of mental health research in NHS or comparable clinical setting with recruitment and consent.
• Experience with electronic health record resources (CRIS) and review/validation of records.
• Knowledge of early-onset and treatment-resistant psychosis in youth, including antipsychotic paths.
• Competence in formal qualitative methods, from recruitment to analysis.
• Experience contributing to systematic reviews and data extraction.
• Experience supporting day-to-day running of a caregiver/patient-facing digital data platform.
• GCP certification and Enhanced DBS clearance, or eligible before start.

Responsibilities

• Review clinical records manually to adjudicate diagnoses and medication histories.
• Identify false-positive cases and assist data linkage with educational/administrative datasets.
• Collaborate with consultant psychiatrists, ward/community teams and research departments.
• Support participant recruitment, informed consent and structured assessment in primary data collection.
• Support day-to-day running of myHealthE platform and provide user support.
• Design, conduct and analyse interviews and focus groups with young people, families and clinicians.
• Contribute to lab co-design and public engagement work.
• Opportunity to lead or co-author publications with IoPPN and NIHR Maudsley BRU.

Skills

NHS clinical research experience

Qualitative methods competence

Participant recruitment & consent

Data linkage & administrative datasets

Public engagement & co-design

Education

Bachelor's degree 2:1 in psychology/related field

MSc in mental health studies/research/epidemiology or related

Tools

NVivo

CRIS familiarity

Job description

We are seeking a Research Assistant to support the CAMHS Digital Lab's early-onset psychosis informatics programme and the platform and evaluation work associated with it. The role suits someone who is comfortable moving between routinely collected clinical data, the NHS services in which those data are generated, and the young people and families for whom the Lab's digital tools are built. The principal workstream is the construction and validation of an electronic health record cohort of children and young people with psychosis and treatment-resistant psychosis, derived from SLaM's Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) resource using structured clinical data and natural language processing, and designed to mirror the multi-centre CLEAR study of antipsychotic and clozapine treatment. You will review clinical records manually to adjudicate diagnoses and medication histories, identify false-positive cases, support linkage with educational and other administrative datasets, and contribute to the systematic reviews that frame this work. You will liaise with consultant psychiatrists, ward and community teams and research departments across SLaM and partner Trusts, and will support participant recruitment, informed consent and structured assessment where the programme requires primary data collection. You will also support the day-to-day running of myHealthE, the Lab's caregiver- and teacher-facing data collection platform in use across SLaM and partner Trusts, providing user support to young people, families, clinicians and school staff and translating recurrent issues into improvements. The third strand of the post is qualitative: designing, conducting and analysing interviews and focus groups with young people, families and clinicians, and contributing to the Lab's co-design and public engagement work. You will report to Professor Johnny Downs, Professor of Child Psychiatry and Health Informatics, who leads the Lab. The post has no line management responsibility, although you may support students and volunteers contributing to the workstreams. There is scope to lead or co-author publications and to develop an independent research profile in collaboration with colleagues across the IoPPN and the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 1 April 2029. Research staff at King's are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the , applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the for more information. The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension. We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination. When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King's guidance. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible. Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving rapidly, and we recognise its growing role in professional work. Applicants may use AI tools to support preparation of their application, for example to research the role or structure written responses. However, applications must reflect the applicant's own work and experience. AI tools should not be used during interviews unless this has been agreed in advance as a reasonable adjustment. Further guidance on the use of AI in recruitment can be found here. We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day. Interview dates TBC. This post if subject to Disclosure and Barring Services and Occupational Health clearances.

Essential criteria

• A first degree at 2:1 or above in psychology, developmental science, health, epidemiology or a related discipline, and an MSc in mental health studies, mental health research, epidemiology or a related discipline
• Experience of mental health research in an NHS or comparable clinical setting, including participant recruitment, informed consent (with consultee or personal legal representative procedures where participants may lack capacity) and administration of structured research and patient-reported assessments
• Experience of working with an electronic health record research resource, such as CRIS, including manual review and validation of clinical records to adjudicate diagnoses and medication histories and to identify false-positive cases
• Knowledge of the presentation, assessment and treatment of early-onset and treatment-resistant psychosis in children and young people, including antipsychotic and clozapine treatment pathways
• Demonstrable competence in formal qualitative methods, from recruitment and semi-structured interviewing through to formal analysis, evidenced by peer-reviewed publication or an equivalent written output
• Experience of contributing to systematic reviews, including title, abstract and full-text screening, data extraction and structured quality assessment
• Experience of supporting the day-to-day running of a caregiver- or patient-facing digital data collection platform deployed in NHS services, including responding to, recording and escalating user queries
• Valid Good Clinical Practice certification and Enhanced DBS clearance, or eligibility to obtain both before commencement, together with willingness to work on NHS premises with children and young people and to travel between participating sites

Desirable criteria

• Doctoral training in progress or completed in a relevant field, such as psychosis, child and adolescent mental health or health informatics
• Understanding of natural language processing applied to clinical text, and of linkage between health records and educational or other administrative datasets
• Working knowledge of specialist statistical software (for example R, Stata or SPSS) or qualitative analysis software (for example NVivo)
• Experience of working with NHS child and adolescent mental health services, including co-production or co-design activity with young people and families
• Experience of contributing to applications for ethical and information governance approvals, including CRIS project amendments

King's College London is one of the top 35 universities in the world and among the oldest in England. The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) is Europe's largest centre for research and teaching in mental health and the neurosciences.

At King's, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university.

Grade and Salary : £39,755 - £42,494 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance Job ID : 162545