An approach to linking education, social care and electronic health records for children and young people in South London: a linkage study of child and adolescent mental health service data.

The work described sets a precedent for education data being used for medical benefit in England. Linkage between health and education records offers a powerful tool for evaluating the impact of mental health on school function, but biases due to linkage error may produce misleading results. Collaborative research with data providers is needed to develop linkage methods that minimise potential biases in analyses of linked data.