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A Festive Message from Professor Dame Anna Dominczak, Chief Scientist (Health), Scottish Government

A Festive Message from Professor Dame Anna Dominczak, Chief Scientist (Health), Scottish Government

19th December 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, I want to express my thanks for the incredible hard work across our research and innovation community

Our work is now clearly viewed as an enabler of faster recovery, reform, and sustainability — running parallel with our everyday drive for better treatments, devices, and services.

But what becomes clearer each year is that progress is accelerated when we work collaboratively — across Scotland, across nations, and across sectors — and this must be a commitment we all take forward into 2025.  

I was particularly proud to work with colleagues earlier this year to host a Triple Helix Roundtable on Game Changing Technologies for the NHS in Scotland. This provided an opportunity to bring together key leaders from the NHS, Scottish Government, Academia, and the Life Sciences Industry to discuss the actions needed to ensure people across Scotland benefit from advances in science and technology that could transform lives, increase healthy life expectancy, reduce health inequalities, create high value employment and deliver economic growth.

This is a collective endeavour and it’s never been more important.

In Scotland, the attributable burden of disease is forecast to increase 21% in the next 20 years. At the same time NHS Scotland is under growing pressure — shifting demography, treatment of late-stage disease, workforce pressures and system inefficiencies. It sounds like an almighty challenge, and it is. But if we work together, harness medical expertise, knowledge, and insight from across the triple helix, and get better at adopting and implementing innovation — that includes the full spectrum of digital tools and AI, novel therapies, and devices — I’m optimistic that a modernised, resilient, and more sustainable health system is wholly within our grasp.  

We already have a robust infrastructure to support research, development and innovation adoption; and further positive progress is evident as we work to strengthen the system to create the pace of change needed.  

A new partnership with AstraZeneca is supporting development of new treatments to treat chronic kidney disease, build infrastructure and enhance expertise in renal clinical trial delivery in Scotland. Partnership with Moderna is bringing new trials to Scotland including norovirus mRNA vaccine trial, a personalised cancer therapy, and novel research in the field of mRNA Science through a dedicated Fellowship. We have also seen the new national Digital Dermatology Pathway rolled out across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Dumfries and Galloway – with the aim of deploying the technology nationally by Spring 2025. This has been made possible through collaboration with ANIA (Accelerated National Innovation Adoption) and its NHS Scotland partners along with specialist input from Dermatology and Primary Care. It is one of the first innovation to be approved for national roll out and has the potential to significantly reduce waiting times and improve patient outcomes in a specialty that we know is one of the busiest with demand for outpatient appointments.

We are also working with colleagues across the UK as part of the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicine Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) Investment Programme — to provide a globally competitive “once for Scotland” delivery network for commercial trials — an area that is hugely important as we look to 2025.

A further development is the new Scottish Cross Sector Hub in Scotland, supported by the Academy of Medical Sciences. Launched just last month, it will draw on expertise and insight from people and organisations within life sciences and beyond to help address healthcare challenges, and fresh Fellowship opportunities are empowering future leaders in RDI.

There is also significant work underway to ensure patients and the public are part of driving improvements in healthcare, whether that is shaping research through patient and public involvement, getting involved in new initiatives such as Future Health, which launched in Scotland during the summer, or encouraging wider participation in initiatives such as Generation Scotland or SHARE — Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank.

It really is about us all pulling together. I very much believe we have strong foundations in place but must take advantage of all opportunities to secure further investment, attract more clinical trials, and form collaborative partnerships to support faster adoption of life-changing research-driven innovations.

I look forward to working with you over the year ahead in support of this drive, but for now, on behalf of the Chief Scientist Office, I thank you all once again for your energy and commitment throughout the year and wish you a healthy and happy festive season.

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