Dr Mark Weatherhead
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Weatherhead is a consultant in respiratory medicine and his areas of specialty are lung cancer, endobronchial ultrasound and sleep medicine.
Having carried out his undergraduate training in London, Mark gained experience of working in a number of hospitals in the UK before settling in the North East. He has been a consultant at Northumbria Healthcare for over 15 years.
Dr Weatherhead sees patients at Hexham and Wansbeck general hospitals.
Dr Claire McBrearty
Consultant in respiratory and general medicine
Dr McBrearty’s specialist areas of interests are lung cancer and pleural disease, and diagnostics in these areas.
After graduating from Glasgow University in 2006, Dr McBrearty worked in hospitals in Glasgow and Manchester before moving to the North East. She completed higher specialist training in respiratory and general internal medicine in 2015.
Dr McBrearty sees patients at Wansbeck General Hospital.
Dr Sarah Haney
Consultant in respiratory and general medicine
Dr Haney’s special interests are lung cancer and interstitial lung disease.
She is the lead physician at Wansbeck and Hexham hospitals for interstitial lung disease and is working with colleagues across the country to improve services in this area.
She was a member of the steering committee for the British Thoracic Society Interstitial Lung Disease Registry and is treasurer for the North of England Thoracic Society.
Dr Janice Ward
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Ward studied medicine at Newcastle University, graduating in 2008. She has completed her training in the North East with a few short periods away to study for a diploma of tropical medicine and hygiene in Liverpool and work for Medecins Sans Frontier in South Africa.
Her clinical areas of interest are lung cancer, endobronchial ultrasound and bronchiectasis.
She runs clinics in Wansbeck and Hexham and has been a consultant in the trust since 2021.
Dr Avinash Aujayeb
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Aujayeb currently works as a respiratory consultant and is the pleural lead.
He is a member of the British Thoracic Society pleural specialist advisory group and secretary of Assembly 11 of the European Respiratory Society. He is an honorary clinical senior lecturer (Northumbria Base) for Newcastle University.
Dr Sean Parker
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Parker's areas of specialty are airway disease, particularly chronic cough and severe asthma.
Dr Parker trained in Oxford and Newcastle and completed an MD thesis doing lung transplant research. He completed higher specialist training in respiratory and internal medicine in 2008 and was appointed at North Tyneside General Hospital that year.
Dr Parker runs the only specialist chronic cough clinic in the region, offering a comprehensive assessment and access to innovative cough treatments including speech therapy. He is the current chair of the British Thoracic Society specialist advisory group on cough (2021-2024). He has co-chaired the latest British Thoracic Society guidance on chronic cough and is a co-chair on the NEuroCOUGH clinical research consortium.
Dr Parker is involved in cough research, has published original research in this area and offers patients access to clinical trials of exciting new cough treatments.
Dr Parker sees patients at North Tyneside General Hospital where he runs chronic cough, asthma and general respiratory clinics.
Dr David Cooper
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Cooper's areas of specialist interest are lung cancer, pleural disease and medical thoracoscopy. He is based at North Tyneside General Hospital.
Dr Cooper graduated from Newcastle University in 1999 with distinction and went on to complete his higher specialist training in respiratory and general internal medicine in 2009. He has been a consultant at Northumbria Healthcare for over 10 years.
Dr Cooper has a specialist interest in lung cancer and lung cancer screening. He is the trust lead for lung cancer services and has set-up a very successful trustwide lung screening project and is involved in the implementation of a national lung screening programme.
Dr Cooper also works as part of the pleural disease team and provides a medical thoracoscopy and indwelling pleural catheter service at North Tyneside hospital.
Dr Laura Mackay
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Mackay qualified from Edinburgh University in 2002 with honours and a distinction in medicine and completed house officer training in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh before relocating to the North East in 2003.
After SHO (senior house officer) training in Newcastle, she spent 5 years at the Freeman Hospital doing pulmonary vascular medicine and lung transplantation and completed a PhD in the pulmonary vascular biology of COPD. She also holds a Masters in pulmonary vascular disease from the University of Bologna, having been selected for this course in 2010.
Dr Mackay joined Northumbria in 2014 as consultant in respiratory medicine and general internal medicine. Since then, she has taken on additional roles within the trust and is presently deputy business unit director for medicine and emergency care.
Dr Mackay holds weekly clinics at North Tyneside in interstitial lung disease (ILD) and general respiratory medicine and sleep medicine clinics at Wansbeck General Hospital.
Dr Mackay continues her research interests and leads on ILD research studies and registries.
Dr Jonathan Miller
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Miller qualified with a BSc in Physiology from Newcastle and achieved a PhD in cardiovascular research from St Thomas’ Hospital, London.
He then studied medicine at St George's Hospital where he qualified with distinction in biochemical and clinical sciences. He completed house officer jobs in London before returning to the North East.
He became a consultant in respiratory medicine in 2013 with a specialist interest in pleural disease.
Dr Miller provides outpatient clinics both at Wansbeck and Berwick hospitals, where he sees patients with general respiratory problems and pleural disease.
Dr Claire Storey
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Storey joined the Northumbria respiratory team in 2022 after graduating from Newcastle medical school with distinction in 2006.
She has always worked in the North East and has trained at most of the North East hospitals until completing higher specialty training and then staying at Northumbria as a consultant in both respiratory medicine and general internal medicine.
Dr Storey’s areas of interest include lung cancer and sleep medicine, and she is part of the North Tyneside lung cancer team, which provides high-quality care to patients throughout their lung cancer journey from diagnosis to treatment.
Dr Storey provides clinics in general respiratory medicine and lung cancer at North Tyneside General Hospital, and a sleep medicine clinic at Wansbeck General Hospital.
Dr Bryan Yates
Consultant in respiratory and critical care medicine
Dr Yates has broad respiratory interests, which include the specialist sleep apnoea service. He also runs the critical care follow-up clinic.
He graduated from Newcastle Medical School and went on to complete specialist training in respiratory and critical care medicine. He was appointed as a consultant in respiratory and critical care medicine in 2010.
Dr Nicola Green
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Green graduated from Glasgow University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Medicine with an intercalated honours degree in immunology.
She relocated to the North East in 2007 to complete higher specialty respiratory training and completed a Masters degree in research with distinction at Newcastle University in 2010. She was appointed a respiratory consultant in the trust in 2015.
She continues to have a keen interest in lung immunobiology with areas of specialist interest in asthma and lung cancer. She co-leads the trust's severe asthma service. This includes access of our patients to specialist asthma biologic agents. She is a key member of the North East Severe Asthma Regional Network developing and improving regional asthma care.
Professor Stephen Bourke
Consultant in respiratory medicine and Honorary Professor, Newcastle University
Prof Bourke's areas of specialty are the chronic 
obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), non-invasive ventilation (NIV) and sleep clinical services, and respiratory research.
Prof Bourke qualified from Queen’s University Belfast with Honours in 1991. He joined the trust as a consultant physician in 2003 and, having been heavily involved in their development, is the lead for the COPD, NIV and sleep services and the respiratory research programme. He also helped establish the thoracoscopy service within the trust which has led to much more rapid diagnosis and treatment for people with pleural disease, including cancer.
He chaired the British Thoracic Society COPD Specialist Advisory Group and served on the Royal College of Physicians National COPD Audit Committee from 2016 to 2019, and currently sits on the British Thoracic Society Standards of Care Committee. He has been invited to present at national and international meetings and taught on NIV courses for both the British Thoracic Society and Royal College of Physicians. NIV is a way of supporting a patient’s breathing without placing a tube in their airway, offering many advantages over conventional invasive ventilation. The NIV service Prof Bourke has developed with the specialist physiotherapists, is highly innovative and clinical outcomes for patients during life-threatening illnesses requiring this form of ventilation are excellent (the mortality rate is half of the national average). He was invited to present the service design at the launch of a National NIV Report ‘Inspiring Change’ in 2017 and joined the committee tasked with developing National NIV Quality Standards in 2017/18.
Prof Bourke is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He gained a PhD through Newcastle University and, in recognition of his contribution to respiratory research, has been awarded an honorary chair. In addition, he has represented the British Thoracic Society in the development of National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines on NIV in motor neurone disease.
He leads an internationally recognised COPD and NIV research programme, supported by research fellows and nurses, and teams at other hospital trusts which have recruited patients. This includes the development of clinical risk scores to help clinicians identify which patients with COPD can be safely managed at home and those who would benefit from much closer monitoring, both in-hospital and after discharge (the ‘DECAF’ and ‘PEARL’ scores). This has led to the establishment of new clinical services for patients.
The National Institute of Health Research gave Prof Bourke a Clinical Research Impact of the year award in 2016 and identified the trust’s seminal clinical trial on ‘hospital at home’ selected by DECAF for patients with COPD as one of the studies most likely to influence clinical practice nationally. The clinical service established with the respiratory specialist nursing team based on this research won a trust innovation and quality improvement award. A similar clinical tool has been developed for patients requiring NIV; this is intended to better inform discussions between patients, their families and doctors, and clinical decisions about provision of this life-saving treatment. Earlier research includes a randomised controlled trial showing that home NIV improves survival and quality of life in motor neurone disease, leading to a marked increase in use of NIV in this condition.
Prof Bourke has published in many international medical journals and contributed chapters to post-graduate textbooks. He is involved in the education and training of medical students, doctors, nurses and allied health professionals.
Prof Bourke sees patients at North Tyneside General Hospital.
Dr Simon Fearby
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Fearby’s areas of specialty include lung cancer, lung infection, chronic cough and airways disease.
He sees patients for general respiratory conditions in Wansbeck and Hexham general hospitals, and carries out bronchoscopy, endobronchial ultrasound and pleural ultrasound.
Dr Fearby trained in London, working as a junior doctor there before carrying a period of research at Southampton. He then returned to London to complete respiratory and general medicine training, He has been a consultant since 2006, working at the Cumberland Infirmary before relocating back to his native North East to continue working as a consultant.
Dr John Steer
Consultant in respiratory medicine
Dr Steer is lead of the bronchiectasis and tuberculosis service at North Tyneside General Hospital. He has been a consultant at the trust since 2014, having previously worked at in hospitals in the North East after graduating from Edinburgh University.
He completed training in respiratory and general medicine in the Northern Deanery during which he completed a PhD which, as part of an ongoing research programme within our trust, has influenced national practice for patients hospitalised with exacerbations of COPD. Dr Steer continues to participate in research and publish regularly in journals.