Two awards for hospital expert

Professor Morris Brown has been voted Doctor of the Year

A specialist from Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge has been recognised for his work helping people to cope with high blood pressure.

Professor Morris Brown, who is head of clinical pharmacology at Addenbrooke's, has won two national awards in the profession's equivalent of the Oscars.

The awards are organised by the medical newspaper, Hospital Doctor, and were set up in 1991 to recognise achievement in hospital medicine.

Professor Brown has spent nearly 20 years building the clinical pharmacology unit at Addenbrooke's from scratch.

I think hypertension is not always taken seriously as a hospital discipline and yet is the most important cause of strokes and maybe heart attacks Professor Morris Brown

His work helps thousands of patients with hypertension, or high blood pressure, every year.

And now his dedication has won him two national awards.

His team came top of the cardiovascular medicine category and Professor Brown was also voted Hospital Doctor of the Year.

He said it was good for the team.

"I think hypertension is not always taken seriously as a hospital discipline and yet is the most important cause of strokes and maybe heart attacks and this will attract some attention to it."

His team's research is largely funded by the British Heart Foundation. One of their achievements is devising a simple guide for GPs.

Addenbrooke's spokesman Dr Ian Wilkinson said the unit gained 100% in each of the judgement categories.

"I think that speaks for itself and I think that finally his effort in building this unit has been recognised," he said.