The School Clinic Morley Street Brighton BN2 9DH
BMedSci BMBS MRCGP
I graduated from Nottingham Medical School in 2002, and have worked in Brighton and the surrounding area ever since. I initially wanted to be a psychiatrist, and spent 3 years working in different mental health specialities such as forensics, learning disabilities and substance misuse. During this time I was also working on the Martlet’s Hospice on-call rota. In 2008 I realised that I missed being able to offer more holistic care, and so re-trained to become a GP. I started working at Brighton Homeless Healthcare shortly after this, which for me was a dream come true. I have been the Lead GP at BHH since 2011 and the clinical lead for 4 other surgeries in Brighton & Hove over the last 2 years.
I am a director of Arch because I have been passionate about the problems of homelessness since I was at University where I first started helping in voluntary homeless projects. I quickly became aware of the very close links between poor mental health, substance misuse and homelessness, as well as the impact being homeless has on someone’s physical health. Working at BHH for the last 6 years has helped to deepen my understanding of the problems of health and social inequality in our city, and I consider myself very privileged to be there. I am completely committed to the homeless GP surgery in Brighton. In my opinion homeless healthcare should be delivered by local professionals on a not-for-profit basis. Arch is the means by which this could happen, and is a wonderfully exciting opportunity for all of us who believe that people who are homeless deserve the very best healthcare that we can offer them.