Practitioner Health Programme Information

The Practitioner Health Programme (PHP) is a confidential, NHS treatment service for doctors, dentists who are unable to access confidential care through mainstream NHS routes due to the nature of their role and/or health condition. In 2008 Dr Gerada FRCP FRCGP FRCPsych was awarded the contract to deliver the NHS Practitioner Health Programme (PHP) service. The service operates in central London, led by Dr Gerada, and both she and the PHP team have expertise in treating health professionals with addiction and mental health problems. To date the service has seen and treated more than 1600 practitioner patients from across the UK. PHP are aware that doctors and dentists often find it difficult to access mainstream mental health or addictions services due to fears that they will not receive a truly confidential service. As a patient of PHP you have the right to request that your status as a practitioner patient of the service is known only to you and PHP. If on presentation your mental health or addiction problem is already being treated elsewhere, you will not normally be able to be seen at PHP as well. Occasionally, PHP do treat patients alongside another clinical team, and the patient's case will always need to be discussed with the other service before PHP treatment is started. Unfortunately, we are not funded to be a fast track service to psychological support even if this means that you have to wait for treatment for NHS care.