Clare Gerada

Who is Clare Gerada?

Clare Gerada is a London-based general practitioner and is Chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners for three years from November 2010. She is the college's first female Chair for 50 years, the previous female Chair having been Dr Annis Gillie.

Gerada was born in Nigeria although her father came from Malta, and she grew up in Peterborough, England, where her father was a GP. She qualified in medicine at University College, London in 1982 and then trained in psychiatry.

She started work in general practice in Lambeth, London, in 1992, after working at the Maudsley Hospital, London, on substance abuse. She was awarded an MBE in 2000 "for service to medicine and to drug misusers". She has also been Director of Primary Care for the National Clinical Governance Team and Senior Medical Advisor to the Department of Health, and is Medical Director of the NHS Practitioner Health Programme, which provides confidential medical advice for doctors and dentists.

She is one of the partners in the Hurley Group, an NHS organisation which runs a number of GP practices and walk-in centres across London.

Gerada cites her main interests of work as being around mental health and substance misuse and has spent over her professional career leading the development of primary care substance services in England.