Integrating Mental and Physical healthcare: Research Training and Services (IMPARTS)

Integrating Mental and Physical healthcare: Research Training and Services (IMPARTS) is a King’s Health Partners initiative designed to bring together mental and physical healthcare in general hospital settings. 

The IMPARTS Research and Education team sits within the Department of Psychological Medicine. The team is interested in the interface between mental and physical health, in particular the link between depression and anxiety and long-term physical health conditions, and how to connect mental and physical healthcare. 

Research and education 

The routine collection of patient-reported outcomes in services across King’s Health Partners provides exciting audit and research opportunities. We routinely collect data covering various aspects of mental and physical health outcomes, including depression; anxiety; alcohol and drug misuse; smoking; adherence; physical function; fatigue; illness perceptions; quality of life; and sleep quality. This provides broad scope for cross-sectional research examining prevalence of variables of interest, and assessment of the factors associated with these. Furthermore, we are able to link IMPARTS data with information held in Electronic Patient Records, meaning that demographic and disease variables can also be examined in relation to IMPARTS data. 

The frequent follow-up of patients screened using IMPARTS also provides exciting scope for longitudinal study designs. These could examine the trajectory of mental health concerns, examine the impact of mental health on long-term physical health outcomes, or examine the impact of certain medical interventions on well-being.  

We have now been granted generalised ethical approval for IMPARTS-collected data to be used for research purposes. This will enable audit of clinical practice against local and national standards of care; evaluations of patterns of service usage and demographic trends to inform commissioning of services; and hypothesis-driven observational research using pseudonymised data. 

Please see our IMPARTS Research Governance Summary to find out more about how to apply to use IMPARTS data. You can read our IMPARTS research privacy policy here.

1. If you are a clinician in a service in which IMPARTS data is already being collected and you wish to see your patients’ data for audit purposes, please contact imparts@slam.nhs.uk.
2. If you are a clinician in a service in which IMPARTS data is already being collected and you wish to see your patients’ data for research purposes, or you are not working in a service but are interested in conducting research using IMPARTS data, please contact a member of our research team to discuss your potential project further. You will be asked to complete an IMPARTS research application form and, if your application is successful, an IMPARTS data transfer agreement (research) form.

If you are uncertain about whether your data request would qualify as research or audit, please see this webpage for advice.

IMPARTS courses

We run a 5-day and a 3-week course on mental health skills for non-mental health professionals. Find more information and book your place here.