Research Assistant/Associate (Fixed Term)

We wish to appoint a Research Assistant/Associate to analyse de-identified electronic health record (EHR) and patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) data as part of a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) programme to improve clinical outcomes in people with mental disorders. The aim of the research programme is to develop Real World Evidence (RWE) that will be implemented in clinical practice to reduce treatment delays and improve access to NHS mental healthcare.

The appointee will work with a multidisciplinary team of data engineers, clinicians and research scientists to assemble and analyse large-scale mental healthcare using descriptive, inferential and predictive analytic techniques.

The team conducts research using de-identified EHR data acquired through the Clinical Records Anonymisation and Text Extraction (CRATE) and Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) tools to analyse data from patients receiving mental healthcare in UK NHS mental health trusts. The research will involve extracting and analysing clinical data to support multi-centre epidemiological studies to inform future NHS mental healthcare service policy.

The research programme is led by Dr Rashmi Patel (Assistant Professor in Real-World Data Analytics) who is an NIHR Advanced Fellow and has completed several research studies to investigate clinical outcomes in mental disorders using real-world data derived from EHRs.

The appointee will have a unique opportunity to develop skills in mental health EHR data analytics and psychiatric epidemiology using state-of-the-art clinical informatics methods. The appointee will contribute to writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals and conference abstracts. They will join a highly productive research department with the opportunity to attend training courses as well as seminars in mental health research. The role will be hybrid with office work based at the Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 28 September 2027 in the first instance.

Once an offer of employment has been accepted, the successful candidate will be required to undergo a standard Disclosure and Barring Service check.

Click the 'Apply' button below to register an account with our recruitment system (if you have not already) and apply online.

Please ensure that you upload a covering letter and a CV in the Upload section of the online application. The covering letter should outline how you match the criteria for the post and why you are applying for this role. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

Please include details of your referees, including email address and phone number, one of which must be your most recent line manager.

For further details of the post and the application process, please read the further particulars.

Informal enquiries are welcomed and should be directed to: Dr Rashmi Patel, project lead at

Deadline for applications is 27th April 2025.

Interview date: 21st/22nd May 2025.

Please quote reference RN45367 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

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