He is a leading international researcher in heart failure, focusing on improving diagnosis, management and monitoring, and has led large, international clinical trials to study treatments. He also conducted one of the earliest large trials of home telemonitoring for heart failure and continues to promote innovations in this field.
Professor Cleland qualified at the University of Glasgow in 1977. Shortly after, he was appointed as a senior registrar. Between 1986 and 1994, he was a senior lecturer in cardiology and honorary consultant cardiologist at St Mary’s Paddington and Hammersmith Hospital, London.
In 1994, Professor Cleland was awarded a senior research fellowship from the British Heart Foundation, and so transferred to the Medical Research Council’s research initiative in heart failure. He joined Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust from the University of Hull, where he was appointed foundation chair of cardiology in 1999.