Sir Simon Wessely is Professor of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. He is a Consultant Psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital.

After studying medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he finished his medical training at University College Oxford, graduating in 1981. He obtained the MRCP in Newcastle, before moving to London to train in psychiatry at the Maudsley. He is an active clinical academic psychiatrist and was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999.

Starting his research career in unexplained symptoms and syndromes, he established the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Unit in 1991 and was a founder member of the Cochrane Depression and Anxiety Group. In 1996 he established the Gulf War Illness Research Unit which, in 2003, subsequently became the King’s Centre for Military Health Research.

Sir Simon is currently Chair of the government’s Independent Review of the Mental Health Act.