Hart, Nicholas - clinical and academic director Lane Fox Respiratory Unit

 

Consultant profiles

Nicholas Hart - clinical and academic director Lane Fox Respiratory Unit

Contacts

PA: Carol Bridge
PA tel: 020 7188 86115

Area of expertise: weaning, rehabilitation and home mechanical ventilation in patients with chronic respiratory failure.

  • Biography

    Professor Nicholas Hart was appointed as Director of the Lane Fox Respiratory service in April 2012, which is an internationally recognised weaning, rehabilitation and home mechanical ventilation service.

    Since taking over as head of service, Nicholas has increased the activity by the introduction of seven-day working, opening of the Lane Fox-REMEO Centre, re-structuring the outpatient clinics and increasing the acuity of the inpatient service, supported by the installation of a comprehensive electronic patient record and central monitoring system.

    Nicholas is also Director of Research Delivery for Guy’s and St Thomas’ and was appointed in 2016. His current roles include:

    • professor of respiratory and critical care medicine, Division of Asthma, Allergy and Lung Biology, King's College London

    • joint editor-in-chief, Thorax

    • Philips global executive pulmonary advisory board.

  • Education

    • PhD University of London, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, 2004
    • MRCP (UK), 1997
    • MB BS (Hons), University of London, 1993
    • BSc (Hons) Anatomy, University of London, 1989

  • Specialist interests

    National and international recognition

    • American Thoracic Society Workshop and Consensus Group: ‘Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome’ (2017)
    • American Thoracic Society Workshop and Consensus Group: ‘Long-term Outcome After Critical Illness’ (2016)
    • International Society Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine Roundtable 2016 ‘Putting Pieces of the Puzzle Together: Brain-Muscle Interdependence and Its implications for Recovery’ (2016)
    • Editor-in-Chief, Thorax (2015)
    • Highly commended Lane Fox REMEO Centre at the International Design and Health Academy Awards (2015)
    • Best Acute Hospital Development Lane Fox REMEO Centre at the Building Better Healthcare Awards (2015)
    • Highly Commended (personal commendation) for National Well-Child Award (2014)
    • Book Editor R Stevens, N Hartand M Herridge (eds) The Legacy of Critical Care: A Textbook of Post ICU Medicine (2014)
    • European Respiratory Society: Co-Chair for Basic Non-Invasive Ventilation Course (2014-current)
    • British Thoracic Society Science and Research Committee (2011-2014)
    • European Somno-NIV committee (2013-current only UK member)
    • International COPD Roundtable Meeting: ‘Is Home Mechanical Ventilation Useful in COPD?’ (2012)
    • Congress Facilitator for Symposia, Poster Discussion Sessions and Thematic Poster Sessions: American Thoracic Society, European Respiratory Society, British Thoracic Society, International Society Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (2005-Current)
    • American Thoracic Society Consensus Group: ‘Intensive Care Unit Acquired Weakness’ (2009-2014)
    • External International Reviewer for Canadian Thoracic Society Guidelines on ‘Non-Invasive Ventilation in Patients with Chronic Respiratory Failure’ (2011)
    • American Thoracic Society Consensus Group: ‘Intensive Care Unit Acquired Weakness’ (2010)
    • International Society Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine Roundtable 2010 ‘Thinking Outside the Box: Muscle Weakness Represents Different Pathologies Requiring Different Tailored Treatments’ (2010)
    • European Neuromuscular Guidelines Group for ‘Pregnancy in the Patient with Neuromuscular Disease’ (2010)
    • International Committee for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the Critically Ill (2008-Current)

    Clinical committees and other clinical responsibilities

    • Author of Muscular Dystrophy Campaign ALERT CARD for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (2014)
    • Author of Muscular Dystrophy Campaign ALERT CARD for Becker’s muscular dystrophy (2014)
    • Chair of NHS England Task Force for Discharge of Complex Respiratory Tracheostomy Ventilated Patients (2015)
    • NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Specialist Respiratory Services (2013 2015)
    • Home Mechanical Ventilation-UK (Co-Chair 2012-Current)
    • Invited Company Member of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign (2012-Current)
    • London Neuromuscular Steering Group (2012-Current)
    • Steering Committee Member for ‘Improving Neuromuscular Services in Kent, Surrey and Sussex’ (2012)
    • British Thoracic Society Council (2011-2014)
    • Medical Advisor to the International COPD Coalition (2011)
    • Respiratory Critical Care HERMES Task Force of the European Respiratory Society (2010-2012)
    • NICE Guideline Development Group: Post Critical Illness Rehabilitation (2009)
    • British Thoracic Society Respiratory Critical Care Group (Chairman 2009-2012; Secretary 2005-2009)
    • Royal College of Physicians Respiratory Medicine Examination Board (2007-2013)
    • Committee Member for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Muscular Dystrophy – Access to Specialist Neuromuscular Care: The Walton Report (2009)

  • Research interests

    Nicholas has built the Lane Fox Clinical Respiratory Physiology Research Centre, which hosts a programme of translational physiological research.

    His research projects have received funding by the National Institute of Health Research, Medical Research Council, British Lung Foundation, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, European Union and a number of industry partners.

    He is currently primary supervisor to three King’s College London PhD students. Since 2009, he has successfully supervised two King’s College London PhD students (primary supervisor), one University College London PhD student (secondary supervisor) and one Oxford University MD student (secondary supervisor). One of the previous PhD students has received an NIHR Post-Doctoral Fellowship to continue her work in the Lane Fox Clinical Respiratory Physiology Centre.

    Nicholas is currently Chief Investigator of five UKCRN NIHR portfolio trials and he has senior author peer-reviewed work published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Thorax, European Respiratory Journal, Chest, Critical Care Medicine, British Medical Journal Open, Cochrane Review, Journal of Physiology and Critical Care. He was awarded King's College London Readership status for Research and Clinical Excellence in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine in 2013 and he was appointed as editor-in-chief of Thorax in 2015. Thorax is the 4th highest ranking respiratory journal in the world with an impact factor of 8.12.

    Nicholas has developed a technology that has an intellectual property patent filing in the US and Europe and this has resulted with close collaborative industry links with Philips. He has a master research agreement with Philips to develop the Myotrace technology and he supervises a signal processing engineer working in the Lane Fox Clinical Respiratory Physiology Research Centre to commercialise the Myotrace technology. Nicholas was appointed to the Philips Global Executive Pulmonary Advisory Board in 2014 to identify and develop new technologies for respiratory health.

  • Awards 

    Award winning abstracts

    • European Respiratory Society British Lung Foundation Award 2014 (M Ramsay)
      The impact of patient ventilator asynchrony (PVA) on the sleep quality of patients using home mechanical ventilation therapy (HMV).  M Ramsay, S Mandal, E-S Suh, AK Simonds, J Steier and N Hart.
    • European Society of Anaesthesiology Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Award 2014 for Publication of Significant Clinical Relevance (Z Puthucheary)
      Acute skeletal muscle wasting in critical illness. ZA Puthucheary, J Rawal, M McPhail, B Connolly, G Ratnayake, P Chan, N Hopkinson, R Padhke, T Dew, PS Sidhu, C Velloso, J Seymour, CC Agley, A Selby, M Limb, L Edwards, K Smith, A Rowlerson, MJ Rennie, J Moxham and SDR Harridge*, N Hart*, HE Montgomery*.  2013.  Journal of the American Medical Association. 10(15):1591-600. *joint senior authors
    • European Respiratory Society Intensive Care Assembly Non-Invasive Ventilation Group 2013 (M Ramsay)
      Changes in neural respiratory drive during initiation of domiciliary non-invasive ventilation.  M. Ramsay, S Mandal, E-S Suh, A K Simonds, J Steier and N Hart.
    • American Thoracic Society Critical Care Assembly 2013 (B Connolly)
      Randomised controlled trial of exercise-based rehabilitation following hospital discharge for survivors of critical Illness with intensive care unit-acquired weakness: a pilot feasibility study (Clinical Trials NCT00976807). B Connolly, A Thompson, J Moxham and N Hart.
    • Intensive Care Society Gold Medal Award Commendation 2012 (Z Puthucheary).
      Acute muscle loss in the critically ill.  ZA Puthucheary, S Harridge, H Montgomery and N Hart.
    • British Thoracic Society Early Career Investigator of the Year 2012 (Z Puthucheary)
      Acute muscle loss in the critically ill: From Bedside to Bench. ZA Puthucheary, J Rawal J, Connolly B, M McPhail, G Ratnayake, P Sidhu, D Shrikrishna, P Hopkins, O Foot, M Kalakoutis, C James, H Ogilvie, N Hopkinson, MI Polkey, MJ Rennie, A Rowlerson, J Moxham and S Harridge & H Montgomery and N Hart.
    • European Respiratory Society Intensive Care Assembly 2012 (Z Puthucheary)
      The musculoskeletal ultrasound in critical care: Longitudinal evaluation (UK-MUSCLE) study: severity of acute critical illness determines the degree of muscle wasting. ZA Puthucheary, J Rawal J, Connolly B, M McPhail, G Ratnayake, P Sidhu, D Shrikrishna, P Hopkins, O Foot, M Kalakoutis, C James, H Ogilvie, N Hopkinson, MI Polkey, MJ Rennie, A Rowlerson, J Moxham and S Harridge & H Montgomery and N Hart.
    • American Thoracic Society Critical Care Assembly 2012 (B Connolly)
      Difficulties of patient recruitment to a post critical illness rehabilitation programme. B Connolly, A Thompson, J Moxham and N Hart.
    • American Thoracic Society Critical Care Assembly 2011 (P Murphy)
      Interim data from a randomised controlled trial of average volume-assured pressure support (AVAPS) vs. spontaneous-timed (ST) pressure support in obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS).  P Murphy, AC Davidson, AJ Williams, M Hind, AK Simonds, J Moxham, MI Polkey and N Hart.
    • European Respiratory Society Intensive Care Assembly Non-Invasive Ventilation Group 2010 (P Murphy)
      Investigating patient dependence on back up rate pressure controlled ventilation (PCV) in obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) P Murphy, AJ Williams, AC Davidson, AK Simonds, M Hind, MI Polkey and N Hart.