Graham Thornicroft is Professor Emeritus of Community Mental Health at King’s College London. He is also a Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, working in a local community mental health team. He is a National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator Emeritus, a Fellow of King’s College London, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Ulm.
Graham took his undergraduate degree at Cambridge in Social and Political Sciences, studied Medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London, and then trained in Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital in London, and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He gained an MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD at the University of London. In 2024 he completed an MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge.
Graham has made significant contributions to the development of mental health policy in England, including chairing the External Reference Group for the National Service Framework for Mental Health, the national mental health plan for England for 1999-2009.
He is also active in global mental health, for example, he chaired the World Health Organisation Guideline Development Group for the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) Intervention Guide (1st, 2nd and 3rd editions), a practical support for primary care staff to treat people with mental, neurological and substance use disorders in low- and middle-income countries. This has been used in over 100 countries worldwide. He chaired the External Reference Group for the WHO guidelines on the Management of Physical Health Conditions in Adults with Severe Mental Disorders. He has recently also chaired the Guideline Development Group for the WHO guidelines on Mental Health at Work. He Co-Chaired the 2022 Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. In 2024 he co-led the writing of the WHO Mosaic Toolkit to End Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health.
His areas of research expertise include: reduction of stigma and discrimination, evaluation of community mental health services, and global mental health. Graham has written over 720 peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, and has authored or edited 34 books, of which 7 are award winning. Since 2020 he has been named each year by Clarivate as among the most Highly Cited Researchers in the world. He is Chair of the Board of United for Global Mental Health. Graham has appeared in the media including BBC 1, BBC World Service, BBC Today radio programme, and The Economist. Graham received a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours Awards in 2017 for service to mental health.
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