Dr Sarah Flowers

Dr Sarah Flowers qualified in 2003 and began her training to be an addiction psychiatrist the following year. She has extensive experience working in London (Camden and Maudsley Rotation) and in Sussex, in a variety of inpatient and community settings.

Dr Sarah Flowers is proficient in managing the range of substance use disorders and addictions. Her training included five years of general psychiatric experience in Sussex and at the Maudsley Hospital and she is experienced in assessing a wide range of co-existing mental health disorders (for example anxiety, stress-related illness, depression, trauma and personality disorders). Dr Sarah Flowers combines clinical expertise with a deep understanding of recovery. She was elected a director of Alcoholics Anonymous UK in April 2015 (the youngest board member to date) and leads a programme of addictions training across the South East.

She was mutual aid lead in Brighton and established the first mutual aid hospital steering group at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton in June 2014. The group has implemented a number of innovations, including Brighton’s first Recovery Festival, which took place on the 30^th November 2016. Dr Sarah Flowers coordinated and chaired the festival working group throughout 2015 and 2016, securing funding for an event that involved around 500 people.

Position at Priory

Dr Sarah Flowers is a consultant addiction psychiatrist and has been working at Lifeworks since November 2018.

Training

Dr Sarah Flowers studied medicine at University College London, also completing a Bachelor of Neuroscience Degree at Kings College London. She trained as a psychiatrist in Sussex and at the Maudsley Hospital, gaining a Master of Science (MSc) in Public Health and Clinical Aspects of Addiction at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. She worked as an NHS adult and adolescent consultant addiction psychiatrist for six years, serving Brighton, Hove and Sussex prior to working with Lifeworks.

Dr Sarah Flowers was elected a director of Alcoholics Anonymous UK, in 2015. She worked as a non-alcoholic trustee between 2015 and 2016 pioneering the development and implementation of ‘Recovery Workshops’ in the UK and talking in Westminster. She has been involved in delivering a program of Recovery Workshops across the South East since that time.

Dr Sarah Flowers has been an honorary senior clinical lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex since 2014 where she delivers addictions training

Research interests

Dr Sarah Flowers has a number of research interests and has collaborated with the Sussex Addictions and Research Intervention Centre (SARIC) at the University of Sussex. She has been a member of the panel, which writes the Royal College of Psychiatrists exam since 2013 and is a member of the Neptune II panel at the Department of Health, which sets standards for best practice in the treatment of novel psychoactive substance use disorders.