Stephen Gallagher was appointed to this role in August 2022. Stephen joined the Scottish Government in July 2012 after 20 years working for the NHS in Scotland and on secondment to the Scottish Government. His previous posts within the Scottish Government include:

· Director of Vaccination Strategy & Policy

· Director for Local Government & Communities

· Deputy Director roles – NHS Performance, Local Government, Public Service Reform

· Stephen was born in Glasgow, attended school and university in Glasgow and Rome.

Professor Dominiczak is a world-leading cardiovascular scientist and clinical academic. She has published extensively in top peer-reviewed journals (over 500 publications, an h-index of 118). Between 2010 and 2020 she was Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Anna developed new clinical academic campus at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, where she led a triple helix partnership between academia, the NHS and industry to accelerate innovation, maximize patient benefits and economic growth.

Dame Anna is a member of several editorial boards and, from 2012 – 2022, was Editor-in-Chief of Hypertension, journal of the American Heart Association, currently she is Editor-in Chief of Precision Medicine, a new Prism journal of the Cambridge Press.

In March 2020, Anna led the establishment of Lighthouse Laboratory in Glasgow to provide rapid Covid–19 diagnostics, and then was asked to become Director of Laboratories at the UK Department of Health and Social Care to lead all 10 Lighthouse Laboratories across the UK, the role she fulfilled until 2022.

In July 2022 she was appointed as a Chief Scientist (Health) for the Scottish Government. She works with the Chief Scientist Office to formulate and implement research and innovation strategy with a focus on transformative innovations that improve health of Scottish communities

Janet has extensive experience in the UK health data research environment and was recently appointed as Director of Health Data and Digital Policy at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). Prior to joining ABPI, Janet was the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Director for Data to Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine at Innovate UK, where she oversaw a broad portfolio of data and digital enabled investments in genomics, health data, AI, medical imaging and digital pathology. In her previous role as a Director on the Executive team at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Janet led the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). CPRD is the UK’s largest dedicated health data research service, providing research data services to industry, academia and regulators worldwide. Janet’s previous roles include Head of Population Health and Health Informatics at the Medical Research Council and Deputy Chief Executive of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration. 

Professor George Crooks is currently the Chief Executive of the Digital Health and Care Institute, Scotland’s national innovation centre for digital health and care. He leads an organisation that is tasked with delivering innovation in digital health and care that will help Scotland’s people to live longer, healthier lives, deliver sustainable health and care services for the future and create economic benefits for Scotland. DHI provides opportunities for Scotland’s public sector, academia and industry to co-design digital solutions to some of the country’s biggest health and care challenges working with patients, service users and their families. 

He was previously the Medical Director for NHS 24 and Director of the Scottish Centre for Telehealth & Telecare. George was a General Medical Practitioner for 23 years in Aberdeen latterly combining that role as Director of Primary Care for Grampian. George is on the Board of the European Connected Health Alliance and is past president of the European Health Telematics Association. He is a Board member of TEC Quality, a UK organisation leading the implementation of quality standards and practices across the assisted living sector in the UK. He is an assessor for the European Commission on programmes involving digital health and care provision and is a member of the WHO roster of experts for digital health. He has been an advisor to several European governments and organisations on digital health and care. He is an advisor to Innovate UK for its Industrial Grand Challenge programme for Health Ageing. He is also an adjunct Professor of Telehealth at the University of Southern Denmark. 

He was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2011 for services to healthcare. 

Helen Puttick is the Scottish Health Correspondent for The Times. She has covered health news in Scotland for almost 20 years, working for The Herald before moving to The Times in 2017. She has been nominated for a number of awards and regularly appears as an expert commentator on broadcast media.

Colin McCowan has been Professor in Health Data Science since January 2019 at the University of St Andrews which he joined from the University of Glasgow.  His research uses routine data for clinical epidemiology and in the support of trials and other research methods spanning conditions including multimorbidity, cancer, healthcare acquired infections, cardiovascular disease and care of the elderly.

Current work is focussed on better understanding the epidemiology of multimorbidity and patient care needs with a number of projects using a variety of AI methods to identify how care can be better delivered.

Dr Donald Macaskill is CEO of Scottish Care which is the membership body for organisations that provide care in care homes, home care and housing support across Scotland. Scottish Care published a Human Rights Charter for Technology and Digital in Social Care with associated Guidance in late 2019 and a Vision for Technology in 2020. Scottish Care hosts a Technology and Innovation project which amongst other things has developed the work around the emerging role of the Care Technologist.
In August 2018 Dr Macaskill wrote ‘TechRights: human rights, technology and social care.’ which explores issues of AI and smart technology, arguing for citizens to be in full control of the technology they use in their homes and care. Scottish Care published a Human Rights Charter for Technology and Digital in Social Care with associated Guidance in late 2019 and a Vision for Technology in 2020.
Dr Macaskill’s interest in the necessity of a human rights and ethical framework for the use of technology and digital in social care has led to him addressing conferences across the UK and North America on this and related issues.

Margaret is Head of the Technology Enabled Care and Digital Healthcare Innovation within Scottish Government. She is responsible for the national Technology Enabled Care cross sector TEC Programme in partnership with the NHS, Local Government, Third , Housing and Independent sector providers which is aiming to support at scale deployment in Scotland . This is centred around the citizen, and focuses on improving access to services by using digital technologies, including the ability to self-manage remotely.
Margaret leads the national Digital health and Care Fest in Scotland, proving a national and international focus to developments in Scotland. She is active in the European arena and is responsible for the International Engagement Team for digital health and care. Margaret was a finalist in Digital Leaders (UK) 2019.
Margaret is currently leading a number of scale up digital programmes in the context of the COVID emergency.

Dr Sam Patel is a consultant respiratory physician with 25 years of frontline clinical experience. He has worked in both the Scottish and English healthcare systems, undertaken research and completed his doctorate in Cardiorespiratory Physiology at Glasgow University. A decade ago, he expanded his lifelong interest in technology to the health sector and led the Scottish Government commission: ‘Closing the Loop’, aimed at improving electronic communication between Primary and Secondary care. Since then, Sam has been closely involved in the electronic management of medicines both in hospitals and in the community. To overcome his impostor syndrome, he undertook his masters in Global eHealth at Edinburgh University, graduating in 2018. He is a founding fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and is currently a Clinical eHealth Lead at NES Digital Services. His latest project is co-leading the work to deliver paperless digital prescribing in the community.

Dr Chris Williams is the Joint Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners in Scotland and a salaried GP based in Grantown-on-Spey.

Chris has been an NHS doctor in Scotland for over 20 years- occupying a wide variety of clinical posts in hospitals before a remote and rural GP training scheme took him around Orkney, Moray and Wester Ross. He has also worked in medical education roles including postgraduate, undergraduate and multidisciplinary positions.

Chris has been actively involved in RCGP since he was a trainee and attending Scottish Council regularly since 2013. His interests include digital health and information governance. The policy priority for the Joint Chairs in Scotland is climate and sustainability.

Dr Steve Baguley is a consultant in Sexual Health & HIV and Clinical Director of eHealth for NHS Grampian.

Steve has long had an interest in information management in healthcare, completing an MSc in Healthcare Informatics in 2008, a PG Dip in digital health leadership in 2019 and was a Founding Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics. From 2019-2020 he was a clinical advisor to, what became, the NES Technology Service and from 2020-2022 he was clinical chair of the Health Board Digital Leads, during which time he was a clinical advisor to the Digital Health & Care Directorate of the Scottish Government and was instrumental in establishing the Scottish Digital Health & Social Care Network.

Marc is the National Lead for the Near Me Network. Prior to his current role Marc was an Allied Health Professions Practice Education Lead and Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist in Shetland where he used Near Me clinically to provide remote services to children & families by video. As the COVID 19 pandemic took hold he supported staff and patients in their use of Near Me to enable the continuity of services to remote island communities. Marc was then part of a team who created digital resources and ran webinars to enable wider health services across Scotland to use Near Me at pace and scale.

Marc was then seconded into the Near Me Network as the National Lead to further roll out and embed Near Me within all areas of Health, Social Care and the Voluntary sector. He is currently leading on the implementation and scale up of video group consultations across Scotland using Near Me. He is also collaborating with academic institutions and NHS Education for Scotland to support the digital capabilities of both the current and future health and care workforce. Marc continues to work with partners across Scotland to provide opportunities for those who experience digital poverty to access Near Me if they choose.

Clinical Director Scottish Health Industry Partnership, Scottish Government
Clinical Lead West of Scotland Test Bed
Emergency Medicine Consultant, NHS GGC

Professor David J Lowe is Clinical Director of the Scottish Health and Industry Partnership (SHIP), Emergency Consultant at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow and West of Scotland Test Bed Lead – an initiative which brings together six health boards and individuals from eHealth, clinical care, research and development to streamline the innovation process across health and social care.

David has significant experience of creating the infrastructure and conditions to develop innovative devices, services and solutions with a range of industry and academic partners both UK and worldwide. He is clinical lead for a number of projects with iCAIRD (www.icaird.com) focused on ensemble based AI techniques for COVID, osteoporosis as well as supporting evaluation and development of AI solutions fracture identification and chest radiographs.

He leads on range of projects including trauma for the STN (thetraumaapp.com), Dynamic COPD (support.nhscopd.scot) and OPERA (early diagnostic heart failure utilising AI). Such projects focus on developing AI/ML clinical decision support by embedding a data driven approach combined with patient co-management into clinical care pathways. David also established the EmQuire research group focusing on data, device and decisions within Emergency Medicine.

Dr Winter was appointed Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV in Glasgow, UK in 1999 after completing a PhD in Infection at Birmingham University. Dr Winter’s main interest is in digital health leadership: he led adoption of the national sexual health system in Scotland since mid-2000s, was appointed as clinical e-Health lead in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in 2015, and in 2020 became Vice-Chair of the Scottish Health and Care Digital Network and a Scottish Government clinical adviser. He is now Clinical Chair of the Digital Leads Group. He graduated from the first cohort of the UK’s NHS Digital Academy and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics. He is a co-investigator in two NIHR-funded studies of digital sexual health transformation. His clinical interests are in HIV care and STI diagnostic testing.

Prior to his current role, Jonathan held a number of IT Project Management posts in the Public and Private Sector and has a strong track record on complex IT and eHealth project and programme delivery. His career in eHealth and IT includes the delivery of the Emergency Care Summary and Key Information Summary systems which were major achievements in improving patient care across Scotland. Proud to be a CivTech Challenge Sponsor and to deliver major programmes for the NHS and wider public sector.

Malika Bouazzaoui is an expert in mental health digital therapeutics, with a special interest in making products inclusive, regardless of identity, background, or ability. Malika has been in the field since 2016, starting in Big Pharma in the USA, where she has been involved at every stage of product development: identifying patient unmet needs, developing products by coordinating clinical and technology teams, getting ISO certifications and regulatory approval, and launching in a few markets. She then qualified as a clinician in the UK, and worked for the NHS briefly before resuming her digital mental health career, this time focusing on clinical content development, evidence generation strategy and driving the market adoption of digital therapeutics.   

Dr Matt-Mouley Bouamrane is a University of Edinburgh Chancellor’s Fellow and Lecturer in Digital Health Implementation. He has over 15 years’ experience in medical informatics and his research focuses on the implementation of innovative healthcare technologies, with a special interest in surgical care, integrated care and high priority and unmet care needs.

He is currently working with the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to develop patient portals for patients with advanced chronic kidney diseases and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to develop postoperative remote monitoring solutions. He is currently a co-investigator in the University of Edinburgh Data-Driven Innovation Talent programme (£1.34 million, 2020-25) and a teaching faculty member of the Scottish Government funded ‘Leading Digital Transformation in Health and Care for Scotland’ leadership programme (https://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/news-events/news-2023/digital-transformation-leadership-programme)

Dr Gavin Simpson has been a Consultant in Anaesthetics and Critical Care in NHS Fife since 2009. He is chair of the NHS Fife Deteriorating Patient Group and contributes to a national deteriorating patient advisory panel. He coordinates the Cardiac Arrest group which reviews all 2222 calls in NHS Fife. He has been involved in the development and roll out of Patientrack e-observations system, which has been used in NHS Fife since 2012. 

Alan Payne is an executive level Digital and Technology leader with over 30 years in Healthcare, Health Insurance, Banking and Capital Markets, bringing digital innovation, vision, knowledge, drive and the ability to deliver globally across multiple businesses and support functions. He has held executive technology and engineering leadership positions at Sensyne Health, Aetna International, Nuffield Health, BUPA Merrill Lynch, Oracle and CTO at JPMorganChase. As the Product and Engineering Director for the Health, Support & Care division at the Access Group, Alan is responsible for the overall vision, direction and delivery of technology to meet digitisation and integrated health and care needs. 

Clémence manages the product lifecycle of technology innovations within Sopra Steria in the UK – from design to testing and development – collaborating with business stakeholders for scoping and solutioning. Clémence has a Masters of Mathematics Applied to Social Sciences, a second Masters in Quantitative Marketing – both from the Université Paris-Dauphine in France, and 20 years’ experience in designing and leading the implementation of analytics solutions. Prior to her current role, Clémence worked for marketing agencies with clients in the private and public sector, financial services companies and management consulting firms. Clémence also gained experience in co-designing with legal teams’ ethical frameworks for the implementation of predictive modelling and Artificial Intelligence.

With a background in both academia and cyber, I bring a well-rounded approach to the field of cyber security. As the Cyber Exercising Coordinator at the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, I have been at the forefront of educating businesses on the importance of cyber resilience. In my role, I have gained valuable experience in the practical application of security measures. Additionally, my ongoing studies in Ethical Hacking at Abertay University keep me up-to-date on the latest trends and threats in the field. I am eager to share my knowledge and experiences with others to help make the digital world a safer place for all.

Donna has over 34 years of experience in the NHS having started her career in a Planning Directorate in East London, and worked in a variety of operational roles in England before returning to Scotland 23 years ago. Donna has extensive operational experience, planning experience working both locally, regionally and nationally heading up the analytical team in NHS Highland for both Health and Adult Social Care. More latterly I have been seconded to develop the Performance and Commissioning Framework for the National Treatment Centre in NHS Highland and to support NHSGrampian in the development of their National Treatment Centre. 

Derick MacRae is the Cancer Service Manager at NHS Highland. His career in the NHS spans two centuries having joined Highland in 1993 after completing the National Management Training Scheme.  

His areas of responsibilities include Urology, Breast, Oncology and Haematology as well as accountability for Cancer performance. As one of the elements to improve the service he has been leading on the development of patient tracking systems within cancer to support the management of waiting times, to support clinical activities and minimise patient delays.

With over 30 years’ experience in IT Nadine has spent the last 10 years working with NHS and Healthcare organisations. Having previously worked in Education and Local and Central Government Nadine has a wealth of experience of working with and within the Public Sector. While working for several private global organisations, including Gartner, Nadine introduced bleeding edge technology to the market, and quickly developed a passion for bringing about change through the use of IT. Nadine has been directly involved in a number of High Profile Government pathfinder change programmes including OPEN, working at the Department for Education managing the largest roll out across Europe of an e-procurement system to British Schools. And while General Manager, delivered the solution for The Scan4Safety initiative in the NHS which enabled improvements in patient safety, operational productivity and supply chain efficiency.  

At Insource Nadine is in her element while supporting her customers to improve patient care by focusing on delivering Insource’s Healthcare Data Solutions which seamlessly bring together all forms of Healthcare Data into a unified data layer – a single source of the truth, enabling healthcare providers to make informed decisions.  

Hugh Wallace is Chief Information Officer at Research Data Scotland (RDS), an organisation that helps researchers find and make use of data that can improve the lives of people in Scotland.

Prior to RDS, Hugh led a high-profile programme to deliver a common payments platform in Scottish Government and support digital service development within Scotland’s Social Security agency. His previous roles include leading the digital teams at Oxfam and National Museums Scotland, as well as heading up the design function in a digital agency.

Kathy is part of the  Usher Innovation Community  which supports collaboration between academics, service professionals and industry to identify, evaluate, validate and adopt new data-driven solutions to the most pressing health and social care challenges in Scotland and around the world. Specifically, Kathy leads the DataLoch service which securely supports data-led research and innovation to enable improvements in health and well-being. Kathy comes from a background in transformation and is motivated by the potential for data-driven innovation to change the nature of healthcare and provide valuable insights into individual and community experiences of care services.  

JD is responsible for over 40 radiology and pathology AI projects within the iCAIRD programme, from early concept research to multi-site clinical evaluation. 

He advises Scottish Government in his role as Healthcare AI Lead and as part of Scotland’s Radiology AI Working Group, Pathology Network, Dermatology 25×25 AI Consortium, and national digital diagnostics advisory groups in England and Scotland. 

He believes that technical and clinical expertise is combining to tackle major health challenges, and that Scotland offers a rich test bed where NHS, researchers and industry can combine to deliver AI solutions that improve the quality, efficiency and sustainability of healthcare.