Dr Daniel Chalk

Expertise

Operational Research, Data Science

Biography

I am chair of the Peninsula Collaboration for Health Operational Research and Data Science (PenCHORD) – a team of applied health services researchers focused on using modelling, simulation and data science techniques to help provide evidence to solve problems in health and social care settings, and inform decision making. My areas of expertise include the use of Discrete Event Simulation to model patient pathways, System Dynamics to model whole systems, Agent Based Simulation to model emergent population dynamics from individual-level behaviours and AI and Machine Learning methods to train machines to replicate decision making. I also have a particular interest in the application of AI-based Natural Language Processing techniques to health and social care data to automate the extraction of information from free text data.

My prior projects have led to significant impacts for patients and services across the region, including significant reductions in referral to treatment time for muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients in Cornwall, supporting palliative and end of life care resourcing decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic and close work with Kernow CCG to improve the provision of urgent and emergency care provision across Cornwall.

I am also the Director of the PenARC Health Service Modelling Associates (HSMA) Programme – an innovative and impactful capacity building programme available to anyone working in health and social care organisations anywhere in England. Staff are released from their usual role for a day a week for 15 months to be taught skills in modelling and data science (as well as Python programming from first principles) and then apply these new skills to tackle a project of importance for their organisation. We provide extensive training and ongoing mentoring support for HSMAs, and previous HSMA projects have led to £multi-million investments in mental health services and emergency department facilities, support for the COVID-19 mass vaccination programme, the development of tools to support more equitable GP funding to reduce inequalities, as well as the establishment of new in-house Operational Research teams in NHS organisations across the region. I’ve led the development and delivery of the programme since its inception in 2016, and have grown the programme from just six associates local to the South West to one which recruits cohorts of around 200 associates per round nationally. In 2024, the programme became the first ever to be accredited by the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts.

I am a firm advocate of the use of Free and Open Source software in developing models for the health service, to ensure that the work I do can be freely shared, used and adapted. All of the approaches I use and teach are free and open source, and all materials from the HSMA Programme (including lecture materials, recordings, code samples and more) are made available freely to anyone, anywhere via our dedicated site. Our HSMA YouTube channel has thousands of subscribers and global reach.