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BSMS > About BSMS > Contact us > Staff > Professor Richard McManus

Professor Richard McManus

A head and shoulders image of Prof Richard McManus outside the medical teaching building

Professor Richard McManus (PhD FRCGP FRCP)

Dean of BSMS
Location: Room 3.01, Dean's office, BSMS Teaching Building, University of Sussex, Falmer Campus

Executive Assistant: Susannah Pettit

E: DeansOffice@bsms.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1273 877575

Area of expertise: General Practitioner, Cardiovascular Prevention, Hypertension.

Research areas: Main research interests are in the prevention of cardiovascular disease including following hypertensive pregnancy, in the context of multiple long-term conditions and when deprescribing may be appropriate.

Other faculty positions: NIHR Senior Investigator; Chair NIHR Research Professor Selection Committee; Member (Chair 2011-2024) British and Irish Hypertension Society BP Monitoring Standing Committee.

View more on Elements here.

Biography

Richard started as the third Dean of Brighton and Sussex Medical School from September 2024.

Richard qualified from St Mary’s Hospital Medical School and undertook training in both Medicine (St Mary’s) and General Practice (Gloucestershire) before moving to Birmingham to pursue an academic career. In Birmingham he undertook the first UK trial of self-monitoring of blood pressure which formed the basis of his PhD. Following NIHR funded post-doctoral training, in 2009 he was appointed to a Chair in Primary Care Research in Birmingham before moving to a statutory Professorship in Oxford in 2011. In Oxford he gained an NIHR Professorship and subsequently an NIHR Senior Investigator Award. 

Research

Richard's main research interests are in the prevention of cardiovascular disease particularly in the context of hypertension management in both primary care and pregnancy. He is also interested in the prevention and management of multiple long-term conditions including understanding where deprescribing might be appropriate.

Richard is recognised internationally for his work on self-monitoring and self-management of hypertension and was the 2023 RD Wright Lecturer (Hypertension Australia). He is a member of the Blood Pressure Monitoring Working Party of the British Hypertension Society and has provided expert advice to NICE (2011 & 2019 Hypertension Guideline) and the European Society of Cardiology/European Society of Hypertension (2018 & 2024 European Hypertension Guidelines). He chairs the NIHR Research Professors Selection Panel and is chair of the PROMPPT programme steering committee and a member of several TSC/DMCs. 

Richard is currently:

  • Chief Investigator on an NIHR Programme Grant around Postnatal Self-Management of Blood Pressure following Pregnancy Hypertension
  • Chief investigator of the OSCAR study assessing the impact of structured medication reviews in the NHS.
  • Joint Chief Investigator of the OPTIMISE2 trial assessing deprescribing antihypertensives in the over 75s.

Teaching

Richard enjoys teaching medical students along with supervising doctoral candidates and is passionate about mentoring colleagues at all stages of their career.

Selected publications

Sheppard JP, Temple E, Wang A, Smith A, Pollock S, Ford GA, Hobbs FDR, Kenealy N, Little P, Lown M, de Lusignan S, Mant J, McCartney D, Payne RA, Williams M, Yu LM, McManus RJ; OPTiMISE Investigators. Effect of antihypertensive deprescribing on hospitalisation and mortality: long-term follow-up of the OPTiMISE randomised controlled trial. Lancet Healthy Longev. 2024 Aug;5(8):e563-e573. doi: 10.1016/S2666-7568(24)00131-4. Epub 2024 Jul 30. PMID: 39094592; 

Kitt J, Fox R, Frost A, Shanyinde M, Tucker K, Bateman PA, Suriano K, Kenworthy Y, McCourt A, Woodward W, Lapidaire W, Lacharie M, Santos M, Roman C, Mackillop L, Delles C, Thilaganathan B, Chappell LC, Lewandowski AJ, McManus RJ, Leeson P. Long-Term Blood Pressure Control After Hypertensive Pregnancy Following Physician-Optimized Self-Management: The POP-HT Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2023 Nov 28;330(20):1991-1999. doi: 10.1001/jama.2023.21523. 

Tucker KL, Mort S, Yu LM, Campbell H, Rivero-Arias O, Wilson HM, Allen J, Band R, Chisholm A, Crawford C, Dougall G, Engonidou L, Franssen M, Green M, Greenfield S, Hinton L, Hodgkinson J, Lavallee L, Leeson P, McCourt C, Mackillop L, Sandall J, Santos M, Tarassenko L, Velardo C, Yardley L, Chappell LC, McManus RJ; BUMP Investigators. Effect of Self-monitoring of Blood Pressure on Diagnosis of Hypertension During Higher-Risk Pregnancy: The BUMP 1 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2022 May 3;327(17):1656-1665. doi: 10.1001/jama.2022.4712. 

Chappell LC, Tucker KL, Galal U, Yu LM, Campbell H, Rivero-Arias O, Allen J, Band R, Chisholm A, Crawford C, Dougall G, Engonidou L, Franssen M, Green M, Greenfield S, Hinton L, Hodgkinson J, Lavallee L, Leeson P, McCourt C, Mackillop L, Sandall J, Santos M, Tarassenko L, Velardo C, Wilson H, Yardley L, McManus RJ; BUMP 2 Investigators. Effect of Self-monitoring of Blood Pressure on Blood Pressure Control in Pregnant Individuals With Chronic or Gestational Hypertension: The BUMP 2 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2022 May 3;327(17):1666-1678. doi: 10.1001/jama.2022.4726.

Rai T, Hinton L, McManus RJ, Pope C. What would it take to meaningfully attend to ethnicity and race in health research? Learning from a trial intervention development study. Sociol Health Illn. 2022 Jan 12. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13431. Epub ahead of print. 

Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists' Collaboration. Age-stratified and blood-pressure-stratified effects of blood-pressure-lowering pharmacotherapy for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and death: an individual participant-level data meta-analysis. Lancet. 2021 Sep 18;398(10305):1053-1064. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01921-8. (Writing Committee Member).

McManus RJ, Little P, Stuart B, Morton K, Raftery J, Kelly J, Bradbury K, Zhang J, Zhu S, Murray E, May CR, Mair FS, Michie S, Smith P, Band R, Ogburn E, Allen J, Rice C, Nuttall J, Williams B, Yardley L; HOME BP investigators. Home and Online Management and Evaluation of Blood Pressure (HOME BP) using a digital intervention in poorly controlled hypertension: randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2021 Jan 19;372:m4858. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4858. 

Constanti M, Floyd CN, Glover M, Boffa R, Wierzbicki AS, McManus RJ. Cost-Effectiveness of Initiating Pharmacological Treatment in Stage One Hypertension Based on 10-Year Cardiovascular Disease Risk: A Markov Modeling Study. Hypertension. 2021;77:682-691. doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.14913. 

Sheppard JP, Burt J, Lown M, Temple E, Lowe R, Fraser R, Allen J, Ford GA, Heneghan C, Hobbs FDR, Jowett S, Kodabuckus S, Little P, Mant J, Mollison J, Payne RA, Williams M, Yu LM, McManus RJ; OPTIMISE Investigators. Effect of Antihypertensive Medication Reduction vs Usual Care on Short-term Blood Pressure Control in Patients With Hypertension Aged 80 Years and Older: The OPTIMISE Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2020 May 26;323(20):2039-2051. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.4871.