Career

Sarah studied medicine at University College London, including a Neuroscience BSc at Kings College London. She trained as a Psychiatrist in Sussex and at the Maudsley Hospital, gaining an MSc in Public Health Aspects of Addiction at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. She worked as an adult and adolescent Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist serving the NHS in Brighton, Hove and Sussex for six years prior to working with Lifeworks.

Sarah has had an interest in the use of Novel Psychoactive Substances since 2008 and developed an evening-party drug service in Brighton, in conjunction with sexual and public health services, which opened in September 2013.This was Brighton’s first legal high clinic. She is a member of the NEPTUNE II which aims to determine gold-standard clinical tools for the assessment and treatment of Novel Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders.

Sarah has a number of research interests and has collaborated with the Sussex Addictions and Research Intervention Centre SARIC at the University of Sussex. A number of locally-relevant research collaborations have stemmed from this clinical-academic collaboration. She has have been a consultant member of the ‘Paper Two’ writing panel at the Royal College of Psychiatrists from 2013 to present, contributing questions on addiction science to the exam.

In her work in addictions medicine Sarah is inspired by the role of mutual aid as a cornerstone of recovery. She established the first mutual aid hospital steering group at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton which first met on 18th June 2014 and has met regularly to date. The group has implemented a number of innovations, and formed the basis for a working group that organised Brighton’s first Recovery festival, which took place on 30.09.2016. Sarah coordinated and chaired the working group throughout 2015 and 2016, securing funding for an event that involved around 500 people.

Sarah was elected a director of Alcoholics Anonymous UK, in April 2015 youngest director to date. She worked as a Non-alcoholic Trustee between 2015 and 2016 pioneering the development and implementation of ‘Recovery workshops’ in the UK and giving a talk in Westminster. She helped to deliver dozens of these experiential training sessions in the South East since that time.

Sarah has been an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex since 2014 where she delivers addictions training.

Clinical Expertise

Sarah has particular expertise in treating drug misuse and dependence and alcohol misuse and dependence, including novel psychoactive substance disorders and co-existing mental health disorders.

Qualifications

BSc, MBBS, MSc, Section 12 approved