Prehabilitation

Meet our team

Clinicians

John Cleland is a Cardiologist and Director of the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, an internationally accredited Clinical Trials Unit offering a complete service, both to academia and industry, for the conduct of trials and registries in many therapeutic areas. His main interest is heart failure, extending from its epidemiology and prevention, to Phase II-IV trials and the development and implementation of guidelines. Particular current interests include the myocardial substrate, mechanisms of progression (eg. congestion and inflammation), telemonitoring and theranostics.

Ben Gibbison is Associate Professor of Cardiac Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the Bristol Heart Institute. His research interests surround Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis dysfunction and brain dysfunction after cardiac surgery and in critical illness. He also is Chief Investigator for a number of NIHR funded clinical trials.

Health services researchers

Maria Pufulete is an applied health methodologist at the Bristol Health Institute. She designs and conducts randomised controlled trials, non-randomised studies, systematic reviews and mixed methods studies in cardiovascular disease. She is Chief Investigator for multiple NIHR-funded studies.

Patient and public representatives

Phil Collis  Phil lives with CVD and is experienced working with patient groups and organisations including British Heart Foundation, European Heart Network, and the National Institute for Health Research. Phil works to ensure people affected by CVD have access to evidence-based information and the opportunity to influence CVD research. Phil also acts as a patient advisor with the Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research Centre based at Birmingham University.

Phil Blakelock first came to the world of PPI after engaging with the BHF following surgery to replace a bicuspid aortic valve, being invited prior to the operation to contribute to a research programme on heart muscle make-up.  This brought a realisation of the link between physics/science and technology with cardiology, and how this can be brought to bear upon challenging cardiac conditions and the welfare of the population. 

Phil has spent most of his career in Defence Engineering and is passionate about all things science.  Having participated in a very professionally run heart research programme, Phil wants to influence new programmes and trials so that they are executed in the same way, particularly from the patient's perspective, on how trials are communicated and executed.

As a patient representative, Phil contributes to many other PPI initiatives, pre-funding application assessments, BMJ patient reviews etc, including the All Party Parliamentary Group on "AI in heart and circulatory diseases", as well as the House of Lords Committee on "Beyond Digital - Planning for a hybrid world".