Professor Francisco Leyva-Leon qualified from Manchester University in 1987 and trained in Cardiology at the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals. He has been a Consultant Cardiologist since 2000, currently working at The Harborne Hospital.

His special interests are heart failure, cardiomyopathies, cardiac rhythm disorders (arrhythmias) and cardiac imaging. He has extensive experience in general cardiology and can treat patients with conditions such as angina, heart attacks, hypertension and raised cholesterol. He also specialises in cardiac imaging, including echocardiography, cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI), and cardiac computed tomography (cardiac CT).

He is a pioneer of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) in the UK (specialised pacemakers for heart failure). He is past President of the British Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and has been a clinical advisor to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) on the national guidelines for Drug Therapy and Cardiac Device Therapy in Heart Failure. 

He is a Professor of Cardiology at Aston University Medical School. He leads research on cardiac devices, imaging, electrophysiology (rhythm disorders), cardiomyopathies and heart failure. He has published over 400 research papers/abstracts and presented over 300 lectures.