The Chest Clinic
Alex Newland-Smith
Senior Clinical Respiratory Physiologist
BSc Clinical Respiratory Physiology
ARTP Part 1 ARTP Part 2
Alex Newland-Smith is the Chest Clinic's senior clinical physiologist. He is responsible for undertaking diagnostic tests for lung function for the Chest Clinic's patients. His NHS base is at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust. He also works at the Chest Clinic's lung function centre, which is hosted at the BMI Bushey Consulting Rooms in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Alex trained at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, at the City of Westminster College, as well as at Middlesex University and the BRI in Bristol where he completed further specialist training.
He has been working as a Respiratory Physiologist since 2007 and was appointed the Senior Clinical Physiologist in charge of Respiratory Physiology at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust in 2017, having worked at the Trust for a number of years.
Alex was involved in the Community COPD service in Hertfordshire, helping to improve the level of community diagnostics.
Along with Dr Matthew Knight and Dr Andrew Barlow, he established the Watford Cardio Pulmonary Exercise unit for the advanced assessment of the cause for unexplained breathlessness and assessment of pre-operative risk.
When Alex is not at work at the Chest Clinic or West Hertfordshire Hospitals, he enjoys spending time with his family, and on odd occasions when time allows SCUBA diving- having been a trained rescue diver in times past.
Physiology tests that The Chest Clinic undertakes:
At the Chest Clinic we undertake a full range of respiratory diagnostic tests; the aim of these tests is to help your consultant determine the cause of your symptoms. These tests include:
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Full lung function tests, which involve a number of forced blowing and short breath holding actions and allow us to gain more information about how your lungs function.
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Bronchial challenge tests -that are used to help in the diagnosis of asthma where the diagnosis is not clear-.
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Oxygen assessments.
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Sleep studies -an overnight test to assess oxygen levels and breathing overnight- to diagnose sleep apnoea.
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Skin prick tests for allergy -these are sometimes done in clinic by your consultant or will be done at the time of lung function testing-.
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Hyperventilation studies.
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Respiratory muscle strength assessment.
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Cardio Pulmonary Exercise testing -a maximal exercise test on an exercise bike where breath to breath analysis of oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, metabolism and heart function is analysed-. This test is useful to ascertain the cause for breathlessness where it is not clear from other tests and is also used preoperatively to assess for safety for major surgery -requested by an anaesthetist. Please, note that this test is performed privately at Watford General hospital to ensure that sufficient staffing is always available for safety reasons.