Royal Brompton clinician receives prestigious respiratory award

Paediatric respiratory consultant at Royal Brompton Hospital, Professor Andrew Bush, has been awarded the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Presidential Award for 2024 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the strengthening of respiratory medicine worldwide.

Annually, the society presents several prestigious awards to acknowledge scientific merit and engagement within the ERS. They honour exceptional members for their exemplary achievements and potential for further outstanding developments in all respiratory areas and within the society. The awards have been announced ahead of this year’s congress.

Professor Andy Bush has been a consultant paediatric chest physician and translational researcher at Royal Brompton Hospital for over 30 years. His clinical practice and research spans many areas of paediatric respiratory medicine, especially clinical respiratory physiology and invasive and non-invasive assessment of airway inflammation in asthma and cystic fibrosis.

He is also Professor of Paediatrics and Paediatric Respirology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. He has supervised more than 50 MD and PhD degrees, co-authored more than 750 papers in peer review journals, and written more than 130 chapters in books and monographs.

In 2022 he was the first paediatrician to be awarded the British Thoracic Society medal, which is awarded annually to a someone who has greatly contributed to respiratory medicine or science. Prof. Bush was awarded the 2024 James Spence Medal and an Honorary Life Fellowship, the highest honour of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Read more about Professor Bush’s James Spence Medal.

In recent years, Professor Bush has been involved in a campaign to introduce legislation to stop the advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes to young children. Earlier this year, the previous Government announced that disposable e-cigarettes are to be banned from sale and supply.

Talking about the award, Professor Bush said: “This award is a huge honour, but not just a personal one. Team science and team clinical medicine have replaced the days of flying solo, and rightly so. This is an award for my clinical team and for so many researchers and collaborators. But above all, it is an award for the children and families, who have taught me so much, and from whom I should have learned more. No words can express the debt I owe to so many people.”

Dr Richard Grocott-Mason, Chief Executive of Royal Brompton Hospital, said: “Congratulations to Andy and his team on this excellent award. Andy has changed the lives of so many of our young patients at Royal Brompton over the past three decades, both through his clinical work and his impressive research portfolio. His impact on paediatric respiratory medicine is unmatched.”

Gubby Ayida, Chief Executive of Evelina London Women’s and Children’s Services*, said: “This is a significant achievement for one of our most accomplished figures and his team, who have been at the forefront of providing the very best of care to our many paediatric patients for many decades. He deserves our enthusiastic congratulations – and our enduring gratitude.”

*Children's services at Royal Brompton Hospital and Harefield Hospital are part of Evelina London Children's Healthcare. Evelina London provides hospital care and treatment at Royal Brompton Hospital, Harefield Hospital, and its purpose-built children’s hospital on the St Thomas’ Hospital site.