Adam Fox is a Professor of Paediatric Allergy and consultant in the UK’s largest specialist allergy service at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals, where he is also the Deputy Medical Director. As well as his extensive clinical experience in all aspects of allergy affecting children, Prof. Fox's involvement in academic medicine allows him to offer the latest in specialist treatments.
He is the founding Director of the King’s College London Allergy Academy, a trustee of Allergy UK and chair of their Health Advisory Board. He is also President of the British Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, the first Paediatrician to have been elected to this role.
Watch Professor Fox being featured on ITV's 'This Morning' here.
Adam read Medicine and Neuroscience at Cambridge University before completing his clinical training at University College, London. Having completed specialist training in Paediatric Allergy in 2006, Professor Fox spent 9 years as clinical lead of Allergy at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals, London – one of Europe’s largest specialist Allergy services, before taking the post as Clinical Director for Specialist Ambulatory Medicine for a subsequent 3 years.
Professor Fox chaired the UK Department of Health National Care Pathway for Food Allergy in Childhood and was a member of the National Institute of Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline development group for the assessment and diagnosis of food allergy in children.
Adam was awarded ‘Paediatric Allergist of the Year’ from Allergy UK in 2007. His doctoral thesis on peanut allergy received the Raymond Horton Smith prize from Cambridge University in 2012 and he was included in The Times ‘Britain’s 100 Best Children’s Doctor’s’ (2012) and the Tatler ‘Doctor’s List’ of the UK’s top 250 Private consultants (2013).
Adam received the William Frankland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Allergy from the British Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology in 2015 and a National Clinical Excellence award from the UK Department of Health in 2016. He was also recognised by Doctify for 'Excellent Patient Experience' in 2018. He is also the senior author of the iMAP (International Milk Allergy in Primary Care) guideline, which was awarded the Allergy Hero Innovation Award by Allergy UK in 2018. He has been President of the British Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology since October 2018. Professor Adam Fox also scooped one of the 29 ‘Top Doctors of 2018’ awards’ an initiative developed to help patients identify the UK’s best specialists, by the global TopDoctors website. His practice Allergy London was awarded 'Best Allergy Clinic - London' in the 2019 Global Health & Pharma Private Healthcare Awards.
Professor Fox ensures that all problem foods are correctly identified using allergy tests such as skin prick testing, specific IgE blood testing, atopy patch testing or provocation challenges. Common allergic problems such as eczema and asthma, which often accompany food allergy, are also identified and treated. When an allergen is identified and excluded from the diet, Prof. Fox is able to offer advice on substitutes for essential nutrients and on how to recognise and deal with any subsequent reactions that may occur accidentally, as well as offer desensitisation (food OIT) for select allergens such as milk, egg and peanut.
Eczema affects 15-20% of school children, in some cases with a significant impact on quality of life. Prof. Fox combines a detailed clinical history with allergy testing to identify and exclude food or environmental allergens, helping to improve eczema and lessen the need for steroids.
Over 1 million children in the UK suffer with asthma. The identification of allergens, used in conjunction with other treatments, can lead to effective control of symptoms. Prof. Fox uses the latest monitoring techniques such as computerised spirometry and exhaled nitric oxide measurement. He is at the forefront of the development of sublingual immunotherapy (a desensitisation process where drops are placed under the tongue daily to lessen an allergic reaction) and anti-IgE therapy for children whose symptoms do not respond to conventional therapies.
Hay fever (allergic rhinitis) is a distressing and irritating condition, affecting approximately 15% of children. It can adversely affect quality of sleep and impact on school life. Following correct identification of the causative allergen, hay fever can be treated with safe medication. There are children for whom this approach is less effective, and in these cases Prof. Fox is now able to offer the new specialist treatment of sublingual immunotherapy. This is available for grass and tree pollen, dust mite, cat, dog and horse allergies.
As one of the UK's few accredited specialist paediatric allergists, Prof. Fox does not look to treat a condition in isolation but looks beyond the presenting problems to consider their underlying cause. He aims to treat the child as a whole, considering how the symptoms and the treatment of one condition will impact those of the others. Prof. Fox work in the UK's largest NHS children's allergy service, Guy's and St Thomas and ongoing involvement in academic medicine allows him to bring the most up to date specialist treatments to his patients before they are available outside of the specialist arena.
Principle Investigator for Guy's & St Thomas' Hopsital for 2 international multicentre trials: - GAP study - using desensitisation to prevent the development of asthma in high risk allergic children - PAICE study investigating role of pre/probiotics in accelerating tolerance in milk allergic children.
Prof. Fox's skill and experience has led to him speaking about his field on a number of different platforms. These include on national television, research papers and peer reviewed journals. You can find out more about Prof. Fox's work with the media at www.allergylondon.com/press.
