Dr Andrew Barlow

Dr Andrew Barlow is a full-time NHS Consultant at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (WHTH) since 2005. He graduated in Medicine after completing a BSc Hons in Pharmacology and also holds a Masters degree from Imperial College. Since 2005 he has held multiple senior management positions at WHTH including Clinical Director for Cancer and Divisional Director for Medicine-a board level appointment which he held for 7 years, stepping down in April 2024, to take up the clinical lead for lung cancer.

Notably, he guided his Trust through the COVID-19 pandemic and conceived, designed and delivered the UK's first virtual ward for COVID in March 2020. He subsequently worked for NHS England at national and regional level advising on the roll out of virtual wards. He is also chief medical officer for The Home Hospital Ltd, the UK's first private virtual hospital and long-term condition management program.

As a well-rounded specialist Consultant in Respiratory Medicine who has worked full time for the NHS for 20 years, his clinical experience is wide-ranging and includes complex airway disease (difficult asthma, COPD, bronchiectasis) respiratory failure, respiratory infections (pneumonia, bronchitis), pleural diseases (empyema, pleural effusions), sleep medicine and respiratory allergies. He has continued his life-long commitment for learning and is one of the UK's only consultants who hold an international qualification in thoracic imaging (European Respiratory Society Certificate in Thoracic Ultrasound).

He is also trained in advanced respiratory physiology techniques including cardio-pulmonary exercise testing. He has sub-specialty expertise in interventional procedures. He was in the first wave of UK Consultants to deliver EBUS (endobronchial ultrasound), set up the first EBUS service in the Mount Vernon Cancer Network at Harefield Hospital before moving this program to his base hospital, West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He is also (uniquely) trained in EUS (oesophageal ultrasound procedures) which enables a wider variety of biopsy targets including para-oesophageal nodes, hepatic mets and left adrenal gland biopsy.

He is an advanced practitioner in pleural interventions including thoracocentesis, pleural ultrasound-guided biopsy and the insertion of indwelling pleural catheters. These advanced techniques are crucial for the diagnosis of both benign and malignant diseases. He co-chairs the national EBUS training course run annually at WHTH and by invitation has presented at the UCL EBUS Live course.

He has continued his commitment to research and development, presenting regularly at international meetings (e.g. ERS Milan 2024) as well as first and contributory authorship for multiple publications ranging from case reports, scientific papers linked with COVID, lung cancer screening, asthma and most recently a real world study demonstrating the benefits of virtual ward programs-in submission with BMJ Frontiers.

He strongly believes in a patient-centred approach, so treatment programs can be tailored to each individual for the best possible outcomes.