Dr Lade Smith CBE
President
Dr Shubulade (Lade) Smith was elected President in 2023. She holds this role until 2026 and leads the RCPsych on behalf of its members and associates.
Lade is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London. She has specialist expertise in mental health inequality. After training in psychiatry at the Maudsley, she undertook a Research Fellowship in antipsychotic side effects, supervised by Professor Sir Robin Murray. She subsequently set up a joint medication review/physical health clinic, aimed at health promotion and management of physical problems in people with SMI, leading to her being nominated for a BMA Pioneer award for innovation in psychiatry.
Until July 2023, Lade was the Clinical and Strategic Director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health at the RCPsych, providing medical leadership for the team developing mental health guidelines.
Lade has been co-organiser of the RCPsych International Congress for four years.
Lade sat on the core working group of the Independent Mental Health Act Review, chaired by Professor Sir Simon Wessely and was responsible for some of the key recommendations including those aimed at improving outcomes for Black people with mental health problems.
Lade was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2019 for services to Forensic Intensive Psychiatric care. In November 2019 she was awarded Psychiatrist of the Year by the RCPsych. In July 2020, she became joint Presidential Lead for Race and Equality at the RCPsych.
Lade’s priorities as President are:
- Nurturing and Supporting Psychiatrists: so we can retain and strengthen our workforce.
- Addressing the Treatment Gap: fight for resources to deliver therapeutic care.
- Fairness for all: tackling inequality for patients and staff, and,
- Raising the profile of psychiatry.