Personal Profile
He was appointed as consultant cardiologist at the University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire in November 2004 to establish and lead the heart failure service in this hospital. At this time he also worked as an interventional cardiologist (doing primary and elective angioplasties) and lead for cardiac imaging for eight years.
He was the network lead for heart failure for the Coventry & Warwickshire Cardiovascular Network before it was dissolved in 2013. In 2007, he became an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, Research Lead in cardiology in his hospital in 2011, Cardiovascular Lead for the West Midlands within the Clinical Research Network (CRN) in 2012, Chair for the Midlands Heart Failure Group and continues to hold all these positions.
He was appointed Honorary Professor of Cardiology by Coventry University in May 2017. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the European Society of Cardiology.
Since his arrival in Coventry he has transformed the heart failure service in his area to an excellent one with pioneering services such as heart failure intravenous diuretic and IV iron day care service in the hospital, ultrafiltration for refractory fluid overload and an easily accessible community heart failure service including a large clinic and home visits by himself if needed.
He heads a team of 2 heart failure cardiologists and 8 heart failure specialist nurses (7 full time posts). He has a particular interest in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFPEF) and runs a dedicated weekly clinic for these difficult patients.
He has special expertise in cardiorenal syndrome patients and has been running a joint monthly cardiorenal clinic with a renal physician for almost 3 years.
He performs cardiac catheterisations, right and left heart catheters and cardiac biopsies. Although his main interest is in heart failure, he is keen on cardiac imaging with a particular expertise in transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE), and dobutamine stress echocardiograpphy (DSE) techniques in which he has enormous experience.
His other interests include cardiology research and cardiac rehabilitation, services that he also heads in his hospital. His undertook original research on ‘electrical muscle stimulation as a novel method for cardiovascular exercise in normal subjects and heart failure patients’ during his training years and has subsequently supervised further NIHR funded PhD research on this. Since starting at Coventry, he has been awarded approximately £400,000.00 in research grants by NIHR.
He is currently involved in many multicentre and in-house trials in heart failure, cardiac rehabilitation and other cardiovascular areas. So far he has supervised 3 PhDs and has served as an external examiner for higher degrees (MD, MRes, PhD) for other universities (Leicester, Hull)
