Dr William Foster

I specialise in cardiac electrophysiology and device implantation. I run a specialist arrhythmia clinic at Spire South Bank Hospital. This clinic assesses and treats patients with suspected arrhythmias, blackouts, palpitations, and patients needing pacemakers or complex devices (defibrillators and cardiac resynchronisation pacemakers). Patients with heart failure are also assessed and treated in these clinics and many benefit from implantation of complex devices to improve the heart’s pump function and protect against life-threatening arrhythmias.

I implant simple pacemakers as well as the full range of complex cardiac implanted devices. Many arrhythmias are controllable with medication and these can be discussed in the clinic. For some arrhythmias, either medications are ineffective or undesirable, or the arrhythmia can be better controlled with a procedure known as catheter ablation. I am fully trained to perform ablation procedures to cure many arrhythmias and have joined the Coventry and Warwick Heart Rhythm Group.

I was appointed Consultant Cardiologist at Worcestershire Royal Hospital in 2012 to set up a local complex device service for the region and to lead the arrhythmia (heart rhythm disorders) and pacemaker services. The complex device service started in July 2013 and is rapidly growing; this means that patients from the local area no longer have to travel to other centres for their complex device implants and can have the long-term follow-up of these devices locally too.

I hold an honorary consultant contract at the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwick where I work weekly performing ablation procedures.

I qualified from Cambridge (preclinical) and Oxford (clinical) in 1999 and trained in cardiology in the Wessex deanery and subspecialised in cardiac electrophysiology and complex device implantation in Southampton, Bournemouth and finally in Liverpool (one of the largest electrophysiology centres in Europe). My research DM was granted by the University of Oxford in 2012.