Sarah Watts is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Clinical Lead with the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Wellbeing Service (IAPT). She is also the NHSE/I Clinical Lead for IAPT in the West Midlands and the Programme Director on the Post Graduate Diploma in CBT run by Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust and Staffordshire University.
Sarah completed her clinical psychology doctorate at the University of Birmingham in 2003 and has worked in adult mental health services since then, including services for older people in community and inpatient settings. She started working in IAPT in 2011 and has been able to use her special interests in service development, therapist training and workforce wellbeing in all aspects of the work she does.
Outside of work, Sarah is usually found on the side of a hockey pitch, supporting her children who play for school, club and region.
In her debut blog, Brittany Oldale collaborates with Sarah Watts to summarise a grounded theory study that sought to create a postvention theory for how to support colleagues’ following a colleague’s suicide within the NHS.
Lucy Chilton and Sarah Watts summarise a case-control study looking at the effectiveness of employment support in combination with psychological therapies within NHS Talking Therapies.
Jake Grange and Sarah Watts summarise a study using observational retrospective cohort data to investigate factors associated with access and engagement with NHS Talking Therapies services before, during, and after lockdown.
Sarah Watts reviews a cluster randomised clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of stratified care compared to stepped care for depression, which has implications for IAPT services.
