Fellowship Bio

Chris is a Physiotherapist with NHS England and MSK Therapy Lead at University Hospitals Dorset. He has been involved in the BRAVE AI programme for patient risk stratification and is passionate about advancing AI to enhance NHS clinical workflows and patient care.

Fellowship Project

Deployment of BRAVE AI: A Machine Learning Risk Stratification for the prediction of unplanned hospital admission

NHSE South West Region

The BRAVE AI project is an NHS South West led initiative aiming to support primary care teams in identifying patients at risk of unplanned hospital admissions. By using an AI-based risk stratification tool, GP practices can proactively manage care for those most likely to need urgent services—helping to keep people healthier at home and reduce strain on hospitals. My role in the project as an NHS Fellow in Clinical AI involved working closely with Primary Care Networks (PCNs) across the South-West. I supported sites with safe deployment of the AI tool, helping them understand the technology, localise standard operating procedures, and develop clinical governance processes. I also led Action Learning Sets with PCNs to share best practice and co-develop approaches for integrating AI into day-to-day care. To date, the project has achieved live deployment across 26 PCNs. We’ve established a regional community of practice, standardised onboarding processes, and built strong engagement from clinicians. Key learning around digital clinical safety and data quality has also been shared across sites. This project has been a demonstration of a geographically vast deployment of an AI technology which has required a novel approach to digital clinical safety with regional assurance and a localisation process. Looking ahead, the focus is on finishing deployment to South-West PCNs, gathering data to support the real world evaluation of the algorithm, and building the economic case for sustainable future deployment. Furthermore – this model for batch clinical safety case assurance can be refined and applied to other digital deployments.

Fellowship Testimonial

Graduating from the NHS Fellowship in Clinical AI has been transformative for my digital career. I have gained a much stronger technical understanding of AI, including learning Python and beginning to develop AI algorithms locally. I am particularly passionate about using natural language processing (NLP) to build coded datasets for AHP professions, which are currently under-represented in the AI landscape. As part of this, I’ve started fine-tuning an NLP model to process MSK referral letters and support automated triage. I also valued working regionally on the BRAVE AI programme, gaining insight into both the challenges and opportunities of driving change across systems. Completing Clinical Safety Officer (CSO) training has opened new future career pathways and strengthened my expertise in digital clinical safety. Through the fellowship, I’ve developed greater AI literacy, gained experience working at regional level, and built strong connections within professional bodies and national digital networks. It’s also been a privilege to present on AI and promote skills development to AHP colleagues across regional and national platforms. Looking ahead, I aim to pursue a digital leadership path and ultimately roles such as CXIO. I will continue contributing to AI readiness for AHPs at system, regional and national levels — and I am already working within the Dorset system to develop clinical AI solutions to real-world pathway challenges.

Links

Article: digitalhealth.net