My main interests are in the clinical and social needs and the treatment outcomes of people with significant mental health problems such as psychosis and bipolar disorder. The areas in which I've worked most have been acute care and early psychosis. I have had a major role in several studies of crisis services, including evaluations of crisis resolution teams and of alternatives to standard inpatient care. My clinical work is as consultant psychiatrist in the Camden and Islington Early Intervention Service for psychosis.

Currently I am Director of the NIHR Mental Health Policy Research Unit (PRU) for England, which provides evidence to the Department of Health and Social Care and its arms length bodies to support policy. The PRU has recently completed a series of studies to support the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act. Current focuses for PRU work include acute care systems and the care needs of people with complex emotional difficulties who may have had a personality disorder diagnosis. I am also very interested in loneliness and social connections in mental health, and am leading the UKRI cross-disciplinary network on Loneliness and Social Isolation in Mental Health and have been involved in several studies in this area. 

 I led the recently completed CORE study, an NIHR programme grant  aimed at optimising the care delivered by crisis resolution teams (www.core-study.ucl.ac.uk), and the CIRCLE trial funded by the NIHR HTA programme to investigate the effectiveness of a contingency management intervention for cannabis use in early psychosis (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/circle). I am also a co-applicant on several NIHR grants, including investigations of decision units in mental health, digital technology to support carers in psychosis, perinatal mental health care and cognitive remediation therapy in psychosis.

On twitter: @soniajohnson, @UCL-loneliness @UCL_crisiscare, @CircleStudyUCL, @AriesStudyUCL.@MentalHealthPRU