The NHS Grampian Innovation Hub is delighted to announce that Dr Gerald Lip and Dr Priti Singh have been appointed to the role of Innovation Fellows, following a highly competitive national selection process.

These are exciting new fellowships developed by the Chief Scientist Office to embed research capacity within NHS Scotland. Dr Gerald Lip is a consultant radiologist with NHS Grampian and the clinical director for the North-East of Scotland Breast Screening Programme. His primary innovation project will be focused on evaluating the potential use of artificial intelligence in the national breast cancer screening programme in ways that maintain the highest possible standards of care whilst delivering a quicker, more efficient service. 

Dr Priti Singh is a consultant psychiatrist and the clinical director for adult mental health. Her primary innovation project is focused on using technology to enable better communication across agencies such as the police, the voluntary sector and the NHS about people with deteriorating mental health to ensure people get high quality, joined-up care as early as possible.    

NHS Grampian's deputy chief executive and strategic lead for innovation, Adam Coldwells said: “Many congratulations to Gerald and Priti on securing these first ever Innovation Fellowships. Our health and social care systems continue to be significantly challenged so developing and testing innovative products that have the potential to help us provide higher quality, more accessible and efficient care is more important than ever. Quickly diagnosing and delivering treatments to people with cancer and intervening as early as possible to help people with mental health problems, are amongst our highest priorities in Grampian. We look forward to hearing about the progress of these important innovation projects and will provide whatever support we can.”       

Dr Gerald Lip

Dr Gerald Lip is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin where along with his medical degree he also gained an MSc in Health Informatics. He is an Honorary Clinical Lecturer with the University of Aberdeen and is the Chief Investigator of the AI project in mammography which is the flagship project in Grampian for the Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnostics (iCaird). Dr Lip is also the Clinical Director for Breast Screening in the North-East of Scotland and Chair of the National Users Group of the Breast Screening IT system.

Consultant Psychiatrist and Unit Clinical Director for Adult Mental health services, Dr.Singh earned her Medical degree from India and subsequently trained in Scotland and Northern Ireland to complete specialist training in Mental health. 

She also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Interprofessional Health care Management with distinction from Queens University, Belfast. Dr.Singh has been a Consultant Psychiatrist from 2012 and has been in a role as Consultant Psychiatrist in NHS Grampian since 2017.She has been serving as the Trainee Programme Director for North of Scotland General Adult psychiatry, Unit Clinical Director for Adult Mental services since 2020 and has been recently awarded the Fellowship of the Royal college of Psychiatrists.

Along with the North Regional Test board and commercial partners, Dr.Singh aims to develop innovative technological solution that improve the digital connectivity and visibility of unscheduled care mental health services across all tiers of health and social care.

The Artificial intelligence assisted platform has the potential to provide relevant information on live service-user contacts with health, social care and public protection organisational universe including primary care, third sector organisations, public protection agencies, A&E and secondary care specialist mental health services. The platform will use smart technologies to identify high risk clinical cases and aims to guide all tiers of services in integrating appropriate interventions including developing a ‘Single Safety Plan’.

The grand ambition is to integrate all tiers of unscheduled care for a seamless service user centric experience and ensuring there is ‘no wrong door’ access to high quality evidence.