Professor Francisco Leyva 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 Medical School. He consults privately at Spire Little Aston Hospital and Sutton Medical Consulting in Sutton Coldfield, and The Priory Hospital in Birmingham.

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His clinical expertise is in  cardiac device therapy (cardiac resynchronisation therapy, pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators), heart failure and cardiomyopathies. He also specialises in cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI) and cardiac computed tomography (cardiac CT). 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 is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), the American College of Cardiology (FACC), Chair of the Health Economics Group and Advocacy Chair of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA). His research interests include: cardiac devices therapy (cardiac resynchronisation therapy, pacemakers and defibrillators), cardiomyopathies and heart failure;  Cardiovascular Photonics; and, Clinical Outcomes Research. These research programmes are undertaken at  Aston University and at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.