During my senior clinical career, I was initially appointed to an NHS consultant position, and practiced anaesthesia and critical care, with a specific interest in liver transplantation anaesthesia, from 1999-2008. I developed a clinical research group and research portfolio in critical care and transfusion medicine, and was appointed honorary professor in the University of Edinburgh in 2007. Following this, I moved to full time clinical practice in critical care to further develop my clinical research activities. In 2011, I was appointed the first Chair of Critical Care in the University of Edinburgh, continuing as an honorary consultant in NHS Lothian.

I am a clinical academic, trialist, and health service researcher with more than 25 years’ experience designing, funding, setting-up, managing, and disseminating complex multi-centre trials mostly in the field of critical and perioperative care. As Chief Investigator and/or co-applicant my involvement includes 13 trials run with the ECTU, 9 UK trials with other UK academic sponsors and trials units, and several international trials. I have a strong track record of grant funding, including £9 million as Chief Investigator, and £34 million as co-applicant/investigator, with major funding from NIHR (HTA, EME, and Programme Grants), Chief Scientists Office (CSO), MRC, Wellcome, and Industry. All of these trials were completed, and most were published in the major medical journals (including 2 in the NEJM, 5 in JAMA, and 2 in Lancet). I am currently leading two multicentre trials, and co-applicant on four.

My own research has used a programmatic approach to building cases for large pragmatic trials, using epidemiology, systematic reviews, cohort studies, stakeholder engagement, and Patient/Public involvement to underpin justification and design. My interests are wide-ranging, including all aspects of the critical care patient journey, but in recent years I have focussed on complex intervention trials including mixed methods evaluations incorporating qualitative elements and process evaluation. Other personal work and collaborations include health technology development and evaluation (including novel monitoring, diagnostics, and recently AI algorithms).  

Through leadership roles, I have been instrumental in establishing UK critical care as one of the most productive international critical care research cultures. I was founding chair of the NIHR critical care specialty group and delivery network (2007-15), and concurrently established and chaired the UK critical care research group (UKCCRG) as the main collaborative inter-disciplinary research development group (2007-16). Both organisations continue as the backbone of UK critical care research, providing mentorship and support to emerging investigators.

I have extensive experience in research strategy and governance. I was Director of Research & Development for NHS Lothian (2017-2021), leading the organisation through the COVID19 pandemic (in which Lothian was among the highest recruiting UK organisations to COVID trials), an MHRA review, and the external review of the Edinburgh clinical trials pathway (2019-2020) with subsequent actioning of its recommendations. I have sat on a range of research strategy committees for the CSO and NIHR, and advisory/review Boards for international research delivery networks in Ireland, Australia, and Canada. I have 20 years’ experience as Chair or member of UK-based and international trial steering committees and data safety monitoring committees (19 in total). These have included a wide range of study designs, including early phase stem cell therapy, phase II CTIMP trials, large pragmatic effectiveness trials, complex intervention, and platform trials.

From 2018-2024 I was the first Director of Innovation for NHS Lothian and the Health Innovation SE Scotland (HISES) test bed. I established a team, strategy, governance structure and diverse innovation portfolio that focussed strongly on data-driven innovation and bringing academic and industry collaborators together to work with the NHS and address relevant NHS challenges. I have a detailed understanding of the key ongoing challenges in developing, implementing, and evaluating data-driven innovations which have potential to revolutionise care pathway delivery. I remain involved in several innovation programmes through research, PhD supervision, and mentorship.