Dr Blackman is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, specialising in interventional cardiology, and in particular transcatheter valve intervention

He qualified from the University of Birmingham in 1992, undertook research towards an MD at the University of Wales, Cardiff, and trained in general and interventional cardiology in Oxford and Toronto before being appointed as a Consultant in Leeds in 2005.

Dr Blackman built the trans-catheter valve intervention programme from scratch, undertaking the first TAVI procedure in Leeds in 2008. He has established Leeds as an international centre of excellence in trans-catheter valve intervention, at the forefront of new technologies and procedures. He has a personal reputation as a global leader in the field and has trained specialists across the UK, Europe, North America, and Asia in performing transcatheter valve interventions.

He is currently the Lead of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) Valve for Life programme in the UK, and a member of the EAPCI Training & Education Group, and European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS) TechnoCollege faculty. As part of the NHS England Cardiac Services Clinical Reference Group, he advises NHS England on interventional cardiology services and is also a member of the NHS England Aortic Stenosis Policy Working Group and Structural Interventional Devices Group. He was Honorary Secretary of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society from 2016-2020.

Research Interests: His main interests are in all aspects of trans-catheter valve intervention. This includes the study of novel devices in TAVI, in transcatheter mitral valve repair and replacement, and in trans-catheter tricuspid valve repair; evaluation of cerebral embolic protection devices to prevent stroke during TAVI; and investigation of optimal access route for TAVI procedures. He is a leading investigator in the study of long-term outcomes of TAVI devices, heading up the major UK and European studies. He has collaborated with other members of the CISTIB group, including Professor Greenwood to use Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance to evaluate the outcomes of trans-catheter valve interventions, and is currently working with Professor Frangi on In-Silico studies of Transcatheter Aortic valve Implantation