Dr. Sarah Welch, MA, BM BCh, DPhil, FRCPsych

Sarah Welch studied both medicine and social and political sciences at Cambridge University, and then moved to Oxford University where she completed her medical degree. She stayed in Oxford for her doctoral research on epidemiology of eating disorders, and then moved to the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals and Institute of Psychiatry in London where she completed training posts in psychiatry and held a clinical lecturer post in addictions. Sarah has been a consultant addiction psychiatrist for the past 20 years. Her consultant career has including working in inner London and also in a small town and rural area; in community-based services and specialist inpatient units; and in both National Health Service and voluntary sector organisations. Sarah is a co-author of the British Association for Psychopharmacology evidence-based guidelines for the pharmacological management of substance abuse, harmful use, addiction and comorbidity. She has been a member of the working parties for United Kingdom government guidelines including the Department of Health and Social Care’s “Drug misuse and dependence: UK guidelines on clinical management” and Public Health England’s “Better care for people with co-occurring mental health and drug/alcohol conditions”. Despite the academic focus of some of her work, she has remained a practising front-line clinician for most of her career.