Dr Graham Burns
Bsc MRCP DipMedSci FRCP(Lond) FRCP(Edin) PhD
Co-Founder of BreathTec.
Graham Burns began academic life as a mathematician before studying medicine and qualified as a doctor in 1992 and was appointed as a consultant in Respiratory Medicine and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Royal Victoria in Infirmary and Newcastle University in 2002. Graham’s work (prior to the COVID pandemic) was principally in COPD and asthma, including the highly specialised area of severe asthma. He has held a number of national advisory roles, previously with the Department of Health and now with NHS England, including leading on the Early Diagnostics pathway.
At the start of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic he set up his hospital’s Respiratory Support (CPAP) Unit and designed the respiratory support escalation protocol, later published by the British Thoracic Society as a national guide. He also authored national guidance on Shielding principles published by the British Thoracic Society and referenced by the Royal College of Physicians and NHS England.
Early after the first Wave of the pandemic he set up a post-COVID Assessment Clinic with MDT review including psychological as well as physical components of the condition. This model formed the basis for the subsequent National Service Specification on which he was principal advisor to NHSE. He is currently specialist advisor to NHSE Data, Analysis and Intelligence Service on resource planning for onward referral impact.
Graham’s clinical work over the past 26 years has principally been in COPD and asthma, including the highly specialised severe asthma service. Early in his consultant career he became aware of the magnitude of the psychological impact of chronic lung disease, at the time an entirely unrecognized issue. Working with Karen they established brief psychological assessment as a routine component of the COPD and asthma clinics – a practice now supported in national guidelines. For the many patients needing support, the benefits of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy appeared to be overwhelming. This impression was confirmed scientifically in their NIHR supported study (Karen’s PhD thesis). It demonstrated that CBT not only improved anxiety associated with long term lung disease but, as a consequence, reduced hospital admissions and saved money for the NHS. Since this landmark study, CBT has been recommended best practice in COPD care.
Unfortunately, a shortage of trained therapists nationally has left patients without the care they could benefit so greatly from. As an attempt to plug this gap and ensure patients get the expert care they need, Graham and Karen spent two years painstakingly translating their face-to-face CBT treatment programme into a digital format – designed to deliver everything, and more, that the original service could provide. The result is BreathTec.