Professor Francisco Leyva-León qualified in 1987 from the University of Manchester. He trained at the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals and is now a Consultant Cardiologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, and Professor of Cardiology at Aston University. He consults privately at Spire Little Aston Hospital and The Priory Hospital in Birmingham.

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His NHS and private medical practice both involve a wide range of clinical conditions including angina, heart attacks and hypertension. His special interests include heart failure, cardiomyopathies, arrhythmias, pacemakers, cardiac device therapy (cardiac resynchronisation therapy) and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). His imaging interests include cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and cardiac computed tomography (CT).

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He is past President of the British Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (BSCMR) and has been a clinical advisor to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) on the national guidelines for Heart Failure, Cardiac Devices and Drug Therapy. He has been a member of the European Society of Cardiology clinical guidelines committee for heart failure and the clinical guidelines committee for pacing and complex device therapy. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), the American College of Cardiology (FACC), past Chair of the Health Economics Group and past Advocacy Chair of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA).

His research interests include: electrophysiology and cardiac devices therapy (cardiac resynchronisation therapy, pacemakers and defibrillators), cardiomyopathies and heart failure;  and, clinical outcomes research. These research programmes are undertaken at Aston University and at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.