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Purpose: Linked maternity, neonatal and maternal mental health records were created to support research into the early life origins of physical and mental health, in mothers and children. The Early Life Cross Linkage in Research (eLIXIR) Partnership was developed in 2018, generating a repository of real-time, pseudonymised, structured data derived from the electronic health record systems of two acute and one Mental Health Care National Health Service (NHS) Provider in South London. We present early descriptive data for the linkage database and the robust data security and governance structures, and describe the intended expansion of the database from its original development. Additionally, we report details of the accompanying eLIXIR Research Tissue Bank of maternal and neonatal blood samples., Participants: Descriptive data were generated from the eLIXIR database from 1 October 2018 to 30 June 2019. Over 17 000 electronic patient records were included., Findings to Date: 10 207 women accessed antenatal care from the 2 NHS maternity services, with 8405 deliveries (8772 infants). This diverse, inner-city maternity service population was born in over 170 countries with an ethnic profile of 46.1% white, 19.1% black, 7.0% Asian, 4.1% mixed and 4.1% other. Of the 10 207 women, 11.6% had a clinical record in mental health services with 3.0% being treated during their pregnancy. This first data extract included 947 infants treated in the neonatal intensive care unit, of whom 19.1% were postnatal transfers from external healthcare providers., Future Plans: Electronic health records provide potentially transformative information for life course research, integrating physical and mental health disorders and outcomes in routine clinical care. The eLIXIR database will grow by ~14 000 new maternity cases annually, in addition to providing child follow-up data. Additional datasets will supplement the current linkage from other local and national resources, including primary care and hospital inpatient data for mothers and their children., Competing Interests: Competing interests: RS declares research support received in the last 5 years from Roche, Janssen, GSK and Takeda., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Of 2598 acute admissions to the intensive therapy unit and medical, surgical, orthopaedic, and casualty wards of a general hospital in London, 313 (12%) were definitely alcohol related. Over half (163) the patients concerned were aged between 14 and 40 and 70% (219) were male. The proportion of alcohol-related admissions varied from 7.2% for a general surgical ward up to 26.3% for the casualty overnight observation ward. Substantially higher than average rates of alcohol-related admission were seen in Irish, Scottish, and Polish patients. Of the 23 deaths in the beds under scrutiny in patients aged 17-60 years, 9 were directly attributable to acute or chronic alcohol abuse.