Dr Stuart Turner
Dr Stuart Turner MA (Cantab) MD BChir FRCP (Lon) FRCPsych has been honoured with
the Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence by ISTSS (2010) and the Wolter de
Loos Award for Outstanding Contribution to Psychotraumatology in Europe (2015).
He graduated from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1973
(BA in medical sciences - psychology and pharmacology) leaving with a clinical exhibition.
He pursued his undergraduate clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital (winning the psychiatry prize)
and in 1976 passed his final medical examinations (MB BChir). He undertook postgraduate training in
medical specialties (later obtaining the MRCP qualification in general medicine)
and then moved into psychiatry.
He began postgraduate psychiatric training at the Middlesex Hospital
where he developed clinical experience and a special interest in behaviour therapy,
working with Dr Edward Chesser and Dr Vic Meyer.
He also received a broad base of supervised training in psychological therapies, with individuals, couples
and as facilitator of a closed psychotherapy group. He obtained the MRCPsych
qualification and moved to Kings College Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry where he
undertook full-time research into the biology of schizophrenia leading to the Cambridge University MD degree.
He became a senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant in 1987 at the Middlesex Hospital
Medical School (first consultant Advisory Appointments Committee). In 1993, he moved into a substantive
NHS consultant post (honorary senior lecturer) when he became Medical Director of the NHS Trust.
He is a registered medical practitioner with the Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST)
in general adult psychiatry.
He has been elected to Fellowships of the Royal College of
Physicians of London (FRCP) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists (FRCPsych).
In the mid 1980s, he was a volunteer and then a Trustee (1988 to 1991) of the
Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of
Torture. One evening in 1987, whilst seeing patients in the Medical Foundation, he
became aware of the emergency services' sirens on the Euston Road, and he learned of
the fire at Kings Cross Station. He played a lead role in establishing the NHS response
to this disaster and to other similar incidents across the United Kingdom.
In 1991, as a direct result of his research into the emotional condition of the
British "human shield" civilians returned from Kuwait and Iraq, undertaken with Dr Easton,
the UK Department of Health was persuaded to support the development of specialist trauma services.
He co-directed, with Dr James Thompson, one of the two nationally funded centres for treating trauma survivors,
initially at the Middlesex Hospital and later in Charlotte Street (1987 to 2003).
He has continued to support disaster planning. In 2005, he was asked to advise the London Development Centre in
formulating a London-wide response to the July 7th bombings.
He has particular experience in working with people with particularly complex problems.
As well as establishing services for survivors of torture, he has been involved in
establishing a DBT service for people with borderline disorders.
He is one of the four clinicians who established the
European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), having been Chair of the
European Trauma Foundation from 1991 to 1993, the precursor organisation. In 1995,
he became second President of ESTSS. In 1996, he established the
UK Trauma Group, a managed clinical network of
practitioners and researchers in the UK; he chaired this for 8 years. He was elected to the Board of the
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) in 2000. He
was appointed as Secretary in 2001, as Treasurer in 2002 and as Vice-President
in 2005. He served as President from November 2007 to November 2008.
In the United Kingdom, he has served as an initial Faculty Member on a course for the
Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient for the Royal College of Surgeons (1996
to 1998), as UK Reference Person for OVEPE, an early project investigating training
and standards in European trauma treatment centres (1998 to 1999) and as
Constitutional Secretary for the British Association of Mental Health and Law (1998 to 2001).
He served briefly as a civilian consultant adviser in trauma to the UK Director of Defence Psychiatry
(1999 to 2003). In 2006, he was a member of a panel inspecting the Healthcare Services in
Yarls Wood IRC on behalf of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the following year was involved
in an inspection of a special unit at HMP Long Lartin. He has since been an inspector at Belmarsh and
the CSC units.
Overseas, he has been involved in training and other projects in Gaza,
Tbilisi (Georgia), Sri Lanka and Namibia. He has chaired an international project
group for the ISTSS in collaboration with the UN on organised state violence (1999
to 2003). He has been an adviser to centres in the UK and overseas.
He is an established researcher in the field of PTSD and is committed to the
application of best available scientific evidence in the treatment of people with
traumatic stress reactions of all types. He was a member of the Guideline Development
Group for the PTSD guidelines published in 2005 by the
National Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence (NICE).
He is a former Trustee of Redress, an organisation working
for reparation for survivors of torture. Redress was one of the NGOs involved in
the Pinochet extradition trial representing the victims of torture in Chile. It also
played a role in defining terms for the International Criminal Court (ICC).
He is former Chair of Trustees of the Refugee
Therapy Centre, a London-based service specialising in offering same
language counselling for young refugees and asylum seekers.
He was a Member of the
Advisory Group to the Dart Centre in Europe and also a temporary adviser to the Trauma,
PTSD and Dissociative Disorders subworkgroup for the APA
revision of the DSM, convening a special one-day session on this topic within the
ISTSS Annual Meeting in November 2008, his Presidential conference. With Dr Jane Herlihy
(his ISTSS conference chair), he co-founded the
Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law. From 2011 to 2016,
he served as associate editor of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology.
He was first Medical Director, Camden and Islington Community Trust (1993 to 1998)
and served as Vice-Dean in the Royal Free
and University College Medical School (1996 to 1998). He then became Director of
Research and Development, North Central London
Community Research Consortium (now NoCLoR) (1998 to 2002). He was Chair of the
Psychology Commisioning Group and (subsequently) of the Mental Health Steering Group, North
London Workforce Development Confederation (1997 to 2003). Currently, he is Emeritus Consultant
to the Camden and Islington Foundation Trust.
Please note that he has now retired and no longer undertakes any clinical work.
Please click here to see a list of publications.