BIHS Hypertension Masterclass

Consultant Cardiologist, Clinical Hypertension Specialist and Physician

Dr Philip Lewis is the Senior Cardiologist at the Alexandra Hospital and at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust.

He has national recognition as an expert in the assessment and management of high blood pressure (hypertension) especially where people are not responding to treatment (resistant hypertension) or where they have reacted badly to a variety of medications. He is the most clinically experienced blood pressure specialist in the North West, actively involved in university research on measurement of blood pressure, teaching and advising on matters of hypertension at a national level. He has been described as a “Super Forecaster” who is able to use advanced therapeutic approaches to treat cardiovascular disease using approaches before they have reached the level of routine use. and to cope with complex cases where several other health conditions coexist.

He is an expert in preventive cardiology and therapeutics including cholesterol and weight management and was the lead cardiologist supervising the Stockport Cardiovascular Prevention Screening Project in which over 200,000 residents had screening for heart disease risk factors, and which informed the current NHS Health Checks Service.

He was the first Clinical Lead for the Greater Manchester Cardiac Network and envisioned its development to being one of the best cardiac Networks in the UK. He has been Clinical Director of Cardiology in Stockport and is Director of Cardiovascular Research with a long portfolio of research in heart failure, heart rhythm treatment, lipid treatment, hypertension and cardiovascular treatments besides his continuing research in blood pressure measurement, palpitations in pregnancy and low blood pressure.

He has an unusually wide background experience in various branches of medicine. He trained at Senior Registrar Level not only in Cardiology, Hypertension, Chest and General Internal Medicine but also in Maternity Cardiology and Intensive Care as well as in Diabetes, Allergy and Gastroenterology. This has given him a unique ability to apply his encyclopaedic knowledge to complex situations where multiple health conditions interact and complicate assessment and treatment. He sees patients with low blood pressure, cerebro-vascular disease and chronic fatigue syndromes where there may be a circulatory component and is often (but not always) able to find solutions where others have given up.

He is interested in chest pain which appears resistant to treatment, sometimes finding that the problem is related to gut activity, breast-bone/rib joint inflammation (Tietze’s syndrome) or even atypical migraine or hidden rhythm abnormalities.

He has published widely on early diagnosis of heart attacks, blood pressure measurement and management and on measurement of blood flow.

• Clinical Interests
• Hypertension (high blood pressure) treatment and assessment
• Resistant Hypertension 
• Low blood pressure
• Breathlessness with heart (failure) and/or lung disease
• ECG and heart rhythm assessment (palpitations)
• Prevention of heart disease and stroke 
• Pregnancy heart problems - palpitations, raised blood pressure, dizziness
• Chest pain assessment 
• Diagnostic dilemmas 
• General medical diseases 

Price-Evans Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom; Distinguished Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark

Professor Lip, MD, is Price-Evans Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine, at the University of Liverpool, UK – and was Director of the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital (2019-2026). He is also Distinguished Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark; and Adjunct Professor at Seoul National University and Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He also holds Visiting or Honorary Professorships in various other Universities in UK, Serbia (Belgrade), China (Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou), Thailand (Chiangmai, Mahidol) and Taiwan (Taipei).

Half of his time is spent as a clinical cardiologist, including outpatient clinics (leading atrial fibrillation and hypertension specialist services) and acute cardiology.

Professor Lip has had a major interest into the epidemiology of atrial fibrillation (AF), as well as the pathophysiology of thromboembolism in this arrhythmia. Furthermore, he has been researching stroke and bleeding risk factors, and improvements in clinical risk stratification. The CHA2DS2-VASc and HAS-BLED scores - for assessing stroke and bleeding risk, respectively – were first proposed and independently validated following his research, and are now incorporated into international guidelines.
The ABC (Atrial fibrillation Better Care) pathway proposed by him is the core recommendation in the 2020 European AF guidelines, and has been shown to reduce adverse outcomes in AF patients.

In 2014, Professor Lip was ranked by Expertscape as the world's leading expert in the understanding and treatment of AF [http://bit.ly/2apB1Dt], a position still maintained in 2026 (https://bit.ly/3eP3qR4).

Professor Lip was on the writing committee for various international guidelines, including chairing the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) Antithrombotic Therapy Guidelines for Atrial Fibrillation, as well as various guidelines and/or position statements from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS) etc.

Professor Lip has acted as senior/section editor for major international textbooks and at senior editorial level for major international journals, including Thrombosis & Haemostasis (Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Studies); Europace (Associate Editor); and Circulation (Guest Editor).

His current group’s research interests are broad, ranging from epidemiology to pathophysiology, translational research, clinical risk assessment and trajectories of risk, patient management pathways, and applied health research. He is passionate about using ‘big data’ and epidemiological observations to generate hypotheses and to inform clinical studies that help improve the management of common cardiovascular conditions, such as atrial fibrillation, hypertension and thrombosis. This ‘big data’ work is often in collaboration with an extensive global network of friends and collaborators, including those in Denmark, France, the Balkans, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, sharing a common goal in ‘research without boundaries’ in relation to epidemiology and clinical studies.

Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Vascular Risk and Surgery, School of Cardiovascular Medicine and Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, and member of the BIHS Executive Committee

Dr Ryan McNally's postdoctoral research project was a joint clinical study between King’s College London and the University of Cambridge investigating salt-sensitivity in the pathogenesis of hypertension. He is now conducting research into personalised medicine for hypertension at the King's Health Partners Centre for Translational Medicine and is working as a pharmacist at St. Thomas' Hospital. Ryan is also member of the European Society of Hypertension Young Investigator Committee.

Physiotherapist, specialising in Frailty, working in NHS Community Services, Chair of the BIHS CP SIG and Trustee of the BIHS Executive Committee

Prior to this role Sam Olden spent several years working in cardiac rehabilitation and preventative cardiac health management in London, which sparked his interest in Hypertension. He has carried through to his Frailty work, with particular interest in non-pharmacological interventions for blood pressure management in the older adult.

Head of the Department of Primary Care and Mental Health and a Senior Clinical Lecturer

Dr Eduard Shantsila is Head of the Department of Primary Care and Mental Health and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He also works as a GP at Brownlow Health GP Partnership and as a GP with Specialist Interest in Hypertension at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital. He has a background as an academic cardiologist.

Eduard's primary clinical academic interests are:

• Holistic care of people with cardiovascular pathology, particularly in disadvantaged and hard to reach groups, those with frailty and mental health diseases
• Hypertension prevention, timely diagnosis and individualised management for best outcomes
• Data science and digital technologies in healthcare.

Eduard joined the University of Liverpool in August 2021, moving from Birmingham after completing GP training in 2020 and working full-time as a GP during the COVID-19 pandemic. He participates in multidisciplinary research collaborations focusing on cardiovascular health (hypertension, atrial fibrillation, heart failure), especially in the context of medical complexity, multimorbidity, polypharmacy and frailty. He joined the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences at City Hospital in Birmingham in 2008 to do a Research fellowship funded by the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. This collaborative research between primary and secondary care led him to a PhD with the Department of Primary Care Clinical Sciences at the University of Birmingham. He continued work at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences at the City Hospital in Birmingham, splitting my time between clinical cardiology duties and postdoctoral research. Eduard initiated clinical research on monocytes in cardiovascular pathology, leading an internationally recognised group. Seven UK cardiology and vascular surgery speciality trainees completed their MD/PhD degrees as members of the group working with several international research fellows. He was a co-PI of an NIHR-funding IMPRESS-AF trial of spironolactone in atrial fibrillation with preserved ejection fraction and developed skills in quantitative research as a member of the E-ECHOES Study (Ethnic - Echocardiographic Heart of England Screening Study) team.

Dr Pauline looks after patients with all stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and has a specialist interest in high blood pressure/hypertension. She runs clinics in general nephrology, hypertension and a multidisciplinary cardio-renal-metabolic clinic. She is a Fellow of the British and Irish Hypertension Society (BIHS) and Chair of the patients charity Blood Pressure UK (BPUK).

She is the Associate Medical Director for Education, Research and Innovation at Epsom & St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. Her own research interests include hypertension, kidney disease and cardiovascular risk and the delivery of clinical trials in hypertension, CKD and diabetic kidney disease.

She is a strong advocate for widening the scope of research into the community and it is her strong belief that equitable patient access to research and education underpins high quality health and care provision for all.