Professor Simon Ray is the National Clinical Director for Heart Disease.

Simon graduated from Bristol University in Pharmacology in 1980 and in Medicine in 1983. After house officer jobs in Bristol and medical senior house office and registrar jobs in Glasgow and Edinburgh he completed his Doctor of Medicine degree as a British Heart Foundation funded research fellow with Professor Henry Dargie in Glasgow.

He continued cardiology training at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle before moving to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital as a senior registrar in 1992. From 1994-1995 Simon was an interventional cardiology fellow in Vancouver, British Columbia, with Ian Penn, Chris Buller and Donald Ricci before appointment as consultant cardiologist at Wythenshawe Hospital in 1995.

His clinical and research interests have focussed around valve disease, patent foramen ovale, cardiac involvement in neuromuscular disease and more recently cardio-oncology. Simon was Clinical Director of Cardiology at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust from 2006-2009, President of the British Society of Echocardiography 2007-2009, Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society for clinical standards from 2010-2013 and President of the British Heart Valve Society from 2013-2016.

Simon was appointed Honorary Professor of Cardiology in 2011 and was President of the British Cardiovascular Society, 2018-2021.