Professor Simon Ray is National Clinical Director for Heart Disease and joint Cardiology Lead for Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT). Simon recently retired from clinical practice as consultant cardiologist at Manchester University Hospitals and is a Past President of the British Cardiovascular Society (2018 to 2021) and a former member of the Board of the British Heart Foundation.

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 to 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 (2006 to 2009), President of the British Society of Echocardiography (2007 to 2009), Vice President of the British Cardiovascular Society for clinical standards (2010 to 2013) and President of the British Heart Valve Society (2013 to 2016). Simon was appointed Honorary Professor of Cardiology in 2011.