Medical Cannabis Doctors
Our aim is to be trusted by healthcare professionals to enable us to support patients in a safe, responsive, reliable and effective way.
By Doctors for Healthcare Professionals to help patients
Sapphire Medical Clinics is formed by doctors. We aim to become a trusted partner of NHS medical professionals and support patients in using medicinal cannabis where other treatments have failed.
Our internationally renowned and respected consultants will assess patients within their area of expertise and if another conventional therapy is available that will be tried first.
Rigorous Prescribing Framework
There are three mechanisms by which Patients and their Healthcare Professionals are reassured that the highest standard of clinical practice and prescribing are upheld. These are:
1. All clinicians are trained to the highest level by international experts with experience in medicinal cannabis prescribing.
2. All clinicians receive bespoke and disease specific clinical and prescribing guidelines developed by Sapphire Medical Clinics using large data sets.
3. Following consultation, all patients are discussed at the central multidisciplinary team meeting involving all the clinicians.
Our Doctors
All of our doctors have been through an intense training program to equip them with the skills required to prescribe this very complex and variable medicine. The program includes face-to-face sessions with an expert cannabis physician, telemedicine clinics with an experienced cannabis counsellor.
Healthcare Professionals
For all UK medical professionals wishing to learn more about medicinal cannabis, we have put together a series of online modules (with examinations) which is the only free CPD certified content in UK.
Why we are safe
We have followed the guidance set by the GMC, MHRA, NHS England.
We have gone beyond this guidance to create our own rigorous Standard Operating Procedures, which are being ratified by the above organisations and will be published on our site in due course. This will guide the future use of medicinal cannabis by closely monitoring adverse events and change in patient outcomes.
We have recruited experienced NHS consultants who are experts in their fields and will only see patients who they would see in their practice in the NHS.
We are aligned to the most up to date research and will continually monitor any new developments.
We will collect data on all of our patients with their consent and will form the first UK registry on medicinal cannabis. This will guide the future use of cannabis, adverse reactions and change in patient outcome to establish where this drug is of most use.
Sapphire Clinics Multidisciplinary Team
Dr Michael Platt MA MBBS FRCA FFPMRCA
Medical Director
Dr Platt has been a consultant and honorary senior lecturer in pain medicine and anaesthetics at Imperial College since 1991.
Following medical training in Australia, he undertook specialist training in anaesthetics and pain medicine in London. He is a professional and highly effective senior consultant in pain medicine and anaesthetics with over 23 years in senior clinical leadership and specialist roles. In his NHS practice he is a senior consultant at the Imperial Pain Clinic and is frequently referred complex patients from other specialists in the UK and abroad.
Professor Praveen Anand
MA MBBS FRCA FFPMRCA
Neurology / Neuropathic Pain (MDT only)
Professor Praveen Anand is Professor of Clinical Neurology and honorary Consultant Neurologist at Imperial College London.
His medical education was at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and post-graduate training at the Hammersmith Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. His research focuses on pathophysiological and molecular mechanisms in human sensory neuropathies and chronic pain syndromes and he has studied medicinal cannabis for approximately 20 years. He runs an integrated tertiary referral clinic evaluating patients with treatment resistant neuropathic pain.
Dr Mark Weatherall
MBBC, FRCP, PhD, MA
General Neurology
Dr Mark Weatherall is a Consultant Neurologist at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.
Vice-Chair of the British Association for the Study of Headache and a former Trustee of the Migraine Trust. He was a highly regarded historian of medicine before studying clinical medicine at Selwyn College, Cambridge University. His clinical practice includes the treatment of headache, migraine, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and numerous other neurological disorders.
Dr Shaheen Khan
BSc, MSc, MBBS, FRCP
Palliative Care
Dr Shaheen Khan is a consultant in palliative medicine and lead clinician for the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust …
community palliative care team, the training programme director for the King’s palliative medicine training scheme and the co-chair of the London Opioid Safety and Improvement Group. Dr Khan graduated from Guy’s, Kings’ and St Thomas’ Medical School, having also been awarded a first class honours degree in BSc Neuroscience and an MSc in palliative care from Kings’ College London. His clinical expertise is in complex symptom control and advance care planning.
Dr Jonathan Hoare
MA, FRCP, PhD
Gastroenterology / General Medicine
Dr Hoare is a consultant gastroenterologist and head of endoscopy for the Imperial College hospitals.
He trained at Cambridge University and St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1993. He undertook a PhD as an MRC research fellow in viral hepatitis and gene therapy from 1998 until 2001. His clinical practice encompasses all aspects of gastroenterology including inflammatory bowel disease and functional problems such as irritable bowel.
Dr James Rucker
MBBS, BSc, MRCPsych, PhD
Psychiatry
Dr Rucker is a Clinician Scientist (senior clinical lecturer level) at The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London …
and an honorary consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, specialising in mood disorders, psychopharmacology and novel drug treatments combined with psychotherapy.
Dr Sushil Beri
MBBS, MD, DNB, MRCPCH
Paediatric Neurology
Dr Beri is a consultant paediatric neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
He has trained at various university and teaching hospitals across the UK and he undertook his general paediatric training at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Dr Beri sees young children and adolescents with all kinds of acute and chronic neurological disorders including childhood epilepsy, faints and funny turns, migraines and other headaches, cerebral palsy, neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders.
Sapphire Consultants
Our growing team of Specialist Consultants expands beyond the Multi-Disciplinary Team and now includes the following clinicians. All of our doctors have been through an intense training program to equip them with the skills required to safely prescribe cannabis-based medicines.
Dr Mohammed Sajad
MA MBBS FRCA FFPMRCA
Pain Specialist
Dr. Sajad graduated in 2005 from Birmingham and, since 2016, has been working as a consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine at the Dudley Group of Hospitals in the West Midlands.
After graduation, he undertook specialist Anaesthesia training in various hospitals across Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham with further specialisation in Pain Medicine. His currently serves as lead for the pain management programme and exam teaching for new trainee doctors at Dudley . Having completed a post graduate diploma in management of pain from the University of Edinburgh, he developed a keen interest in managing neuropathic pain including radicular back pain. In his current practice in the NHS, he sees a variety of pain disorders including Fibromyalgia, Post Herpetic Neuralgia, chronic regional pain syndrome and many more besides. He is an enthusiast in the role of Cannabinoids in chronic pain, particularly widespread pain.
Dr Azfer Usmani
MBBS, FRCA, FCARCSI, FFPMRCA
Pain Specialist
Dr. Azfer Usmani is presently working with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, Kent. He specializes in management of a wide array of chronic pain conditions using the latest techniques in pain management.
He is trained in South East England in pain medicine and anaesthetics. A part of his training was at the Guys & St. Thomas Hospital as well as St. George’s Hospital. He obtained the FRCA and FFPMRCA qualifications from the Royal College of Anaesthetists, UK.
Dr Kavita Praveen
MBBS, MRCPsych, AFMCP
Paediatric Psychiatry
Dr Kavita Praveen has extensive experience, expertise and passion in the field of Mental Health both within the National Health Service and Independent Sector.
She assesses and treats a range of emotional and developmental disorders including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, ADHD, ASD and other complex mental health disorders. She has specialism in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr Praveen is also a Functional Medicine Practitioner having completed AFMCP (Applied Function Medicine in Clinical Practice) from Institute of Functional Medicine.
Dr Ezzat Awad
MBBC, MRCP, Msc
General Neurology
Dr Ezzat Awad is a Neurology Consultant with special interest in Epilepsy and Functional Neurological Disorder at Mid and South Essex University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Richard Watchorn
MB BCh BAO MD FRCP
Dermatology
Dr Watchorn is a Consultant Dermatologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
He undertook his postgraduate training in both Ireland and the UK, and was awarded his MD for research in lichen sclerosus undertaken as an EADV fellow at University College Hospital, London.
His clinical practice incorporates diverse areas of dermatology including pruritus (itch), inflammatory dermatology, genital dermatology and skin cancer.
Dr Anastasia Therianou
MD PhD
Dermatology
Dr Anastasia Therianou works as a Consultant Dermatologist at the world-renowned Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
She carried out dermatology specialist training in leading centres such as Saint John’s Institute of Dermatology and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She was awarded her PhD for her research in psoriasis which was a collaboration between Tuft’s University in Boston, USA and the University of Athens, Greece. Several of her research projects have appeared in top scientific journals.
She is experienced in various aspects of adult general dermatology including acne, eczema, psoriasis and pruritus. Additionally she has specialist interest in hair and nail disorders and skin cancers.
Dr. Mona Mubarak
M.B, Ch.B, FCARCSI, EDRA, EDAIC, DipPain (CAI), FIPP, FFPMCAI
Chronic Pain Consultant
Dr. Mubarak is a full time Consultant in Chronic Pain Management and Anaesthesia, whose NHS practice was based at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham. Dr. Mubarak completed her Anaesthesia and Basic Pain Training in 2014.
Upon completion of training, she joined the pain fellowship training program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, completing in 2015. Training in Ireland and Sydney included chronic pain management using a holistic approach with rehabilitation for chronic pain problems. Sydney Teaching University Hospital is a tertiary pain referral centre for treating pelvic pain in women. With an interest to further her skills in pain management with intention to specialise in cancer pain and neuromodulation, Dr. Mubarak joined another pain fellowship program in Leeds in 2016. In 2017, Mubarak’s passion for pain management extended to the USA, where she completed the Fellowship of Interventional Pain Practice (FIPP) examination.
Dr Wendy Holden
MBBS MSc FRCP DO
Consultant Rheumatologist
Dr Wendy Holden is a Consultant Rheumatologist in North Hampshire and has additional training in pain management with a particular interest in all aspects of self-management to help with arthritis and chronic pain.
Dr Holden sees patients with chronic painful conditions that are often difficult to treat with conventional medicines, including fibromyalgia and Ehlers Danlos syndrome Hypermobility Type as well as many other types of arthritis and painful conditions. Dr Wendy Holden is also Medical Advisor to Arthritis Action.
Dr Chris Symeon
MBBS, MSc, MRCPsych
Consultant Psychiatrist
Dr Symeon is a consultant psychiatrist specialising in the assessment and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders including functional neurological disorder (FND) and brain injury.
After qualifying from Barts and The London Medical School, he went on to complete his psychiatric training at South London and Maudsley (SLAM) and gain a masters in neuroscience from Kings College London.
He has an interest in digital health and innovation. He is currently working as a consultant neuropsychiatrist at St George’s University NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Urmila Bhoskar
MBBS, MRCPsych
Consultant Psychiatrist
Dr Symeon is a consultant psychiatrist specialising in the assessment and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders including functional neurological disorder (FND) and brain injury.
She currently works in low secure mental health services at St Andrew’s Healthcare, which provides specialist care for people with challenging mental health needs. Dr Bhoska assess a range of emotional and developmental disorders including PTSD, Personality disorder, attachment disorders, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, ADHD, ASD and other complex mental health disorders. She is trained in DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) and assessment of ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder).
Multidisciplinary Team
This is formed of our seven specialist doctors and the doctors within the clinic. After the initial consult, if deemed appropriate the patient is discussed at the MDT and a final decision is made to issue a prescription or not.
Successful
Our team have already excelled in their careers individually and now have come together to offer the best, most responsible, expert led clinical assessment for medicinal cannabis.
Hassle Free Prescriptions
Once the prescription has been written the doctor has no further part in the payment or delivery of the medicine. Sapphire will organise this entirely to maintain the patient doctor relationship and ensure the prescription is fulfilled.
