Biography

Professor Piers Daubeney is a consultant paediatric and fetal cardiologist at Royal Brompton Hospital, where he treats both private and NHS patients. 

He graduated with honours from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He qualified in 1988.

Following that, he completed postgraduate training in Southampton, UK; Melbourne, Australia; and Toronto, Canada.

Professor Daubney has an international reputation for the treatment of infants, children and teenagers with all forms of heart disease as well as in the unborn child.

Clinical expertise

Professor Piers Daubeney treats a wide range of cardiac conditions in infants, children, adolescents and young adults including:

  • heart murmurs - electrocardiogram and echocardiographic evaluation
  • congenital heart disease - both paediatric and adult congenital
  • acquired heart diseases such as Kawasaki disease, myocarditis and cardiomyopathy
  • arrhythmias - investigation and management
  • generalised diseases requiring cardiac monitoring such as Marfan syndrome, Ehlers danlos syndromes, Noonan syndromes, and muscular dystrophies
  • hypertension - investigation and management
  • cardiac surgery - joint management and liaison with selected cardiac surgeons
  • catheter intervention - joint management and close liaison with selected catheter interventionalists.

Professor Daubeney has specialised expertise in managing symptoms suggestive of underlying heart conditions such as:

  • chest pain
  • palpitations and tachycardia (sensation of a fluttering, fast, pounding or irregular heartbeat)
  • syncope (faints)
  • blue spells and colour change.

Professor Daubeney also has particular expertise in managing:

  • cardiomyopathy and sudden death syndromes
  • athletes with suspected cardiac conditions
  • children with adverse cardiac family history.

Research interests

Professor Piers Daubeney has developed a leading international research team which has carried out three of the largest multi-institutional studies into childhood heart diseases in the world. 

Dr Daubeney has been involved in multiple studies carried out over seven years, with their results published to international acclaim, including:

  • the UK and Ireland study of pulmonary atresia with intact septum
  • the national Australian Childhood Cardiomyopathy study
  • the UK, Ireland and Sweden study of total anomalous pulmonary venous connection and pulmonary vein stenosis.

"Childhood heart diseases are often rare, so it is important to carry out multi-institutional population-based studies to get accurate results. As our expertise with this technique is improving, more countries have wanted to join our studies."

As a result of the UK, Ireland and Sweden study, Professor Piers Daubeney and his team have been asked to speak at a number of prestigious international events including the World Congress of Paediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. He has also appeared on a panel of experts at the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans.

Before joining Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, he worked in Australia and Canada.

"Working overseas is extremely valuable as it gives you the experience of different systems and surgical strategies to bring back to the UK. This enriches debate among cardiology teams and helps us to establish risk factors for treating rare congenital heart disease."

Publications

Dr Piers Daubeney has also contributed a number of articles to prestigious international medical journals such as 'a review on pulmonary vein stenosis: initial experience with cutting balloon angioplasty' in Heart 2006;92 (6):815-20.

Dr Daubeney also jointly edited Diagnosis and Management of Adult Congenital Heart Diseasewhich has sold 6,500 copies and has been translated into a number of languages and reprinted three times. He was also commissioned by publishers Blackwell to be the senior editor for Paediatric Cardiology: A Practical Guide.

Teaching

Professor Piers Daubeney is a regular lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute. Dr Daubeney also participates in courses on fetal echocardiography, paediatric echo, neonatal cardiology and cardiac pathology.

In September 2018, Professor Daubeney was promoted to professor of practice (paediatric cardiology) at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, in recognition of his academic contributions and achievements in the field.