Emeritus ProfessorAnita Simonds

Anita K Simonds is an Honorary Consultant in Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital, and Emeritus Professsor of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at NHLI, with a research and clinical interest in sleep disordered breathing, and acute and chronic respiratory failure in adults and children. She has investigated the physiological basis of breathing difficulties during sleep, and carried out trials of ventilatory support in a range of conditions.

She was President of the European Respiratory Society 2020-2021, is currently chair of the International Respiratory Coalition 2026- and was a contrbutory author of the WHO/ERS report on Chronic Respiratory Diseases and health equity by 2050 published in 2025. 

Prof Simonds' team have performed randomised controlled trials of the timing of initiation of non-invasive ventilation, and of a variety of ventilatory modes. This work has contributed to numerous clinical guidelines and standards of care.

Having demonstrated that sleep disordered breathing is common in heart failure patients, the sleep research team has investigated nocturnal adaptive servo-ventilation on survival and cardiac outcomes in the Serve-HF trial and is also carried out an NIHR CLAHRC funded trial of telemonitoring in respiratory and heart failure patients, plus trials of an autotitrating non-invasive ventilator.

Prof Simonds has a particular interest in the respiratory complications of neuromuscular disease in adults and children and has co-authored guidlines in this area, and was also clinical lead for the NICE guideline (NG202) on Obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome and obesity hypoventilation syndrome in over 16s, 2022. 

She is the current Harveian Librarian at the Royal College of Physicians, London 2024-

Prof Simonds was awarded the British Thoracic Medal for Outstanding constributions to Respiratory Medicine in 2024,  and the Margaret Pfrommer medal for clinical and research in Long Term Mechanical Ventilation, by the American College of Chest Physicians. The Margaret Pfrommer memorial lecture was published in the journal Chest.

She is also a supporter of the Samaritans.