Mary Docherty Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist

About me

Mary is a Harkness Fellow and Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Mary is a 2018/19 Harkness Fellow in health care policy and practice, based at New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. Her research will examine a series of programmes providing coordinated or integrated packages of physical, mental and social care interventions to those living with mental and physical health co-morbidity.

Mary is an Expert Clinical Adviser to NHS England’s Mental Health Clinical Policy and Strategy Group. She has published research across the translational spectrum, and her research on treatment and outcome gaps within UK mental health provision has informed national policy.

Mary’s work with the Department of Health, NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) includes leading roles in national and regional programmes tackling inefficiencies and inequalities at service interfaces. Outputs include tools and methodology for disinvestment in ineffective practices, implementation of multi-agency crisis care pathways, and national guidance and delivery programme to reduce premature mortality in individuals with serious mental illness. In addition, she established the first national specialist service for cognitive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

She holds a first-class honours degree and Masters with distinction in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of East Anglia. She graduated with honours (gold medallist) from Hull York Medical School and completed her psychiatry residency in the Maudsley Training programme and NIHR research fellowships at the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London.

She is an alumnus of the Chief Medical Officer’s Clinical Adviser’s Scheme and a member of both the Royal College of Physicians and Psychiatrists.