Our People

Joining SHAAP as Director in July 2021, Elinor has a wealth of experience in influencing policy and representing organisations in Scotland and the UK.

She’s worked in a range of sectors on a number of different issues, most recently heading up the influencing team at national healthcare charity Sue Ryder.

Prior to this she worked for the Royal College of Nursing, Edinburgh City Centre Management Company and the Scottish Retail Consortium. Elinor is a trustee for Cyrenians, the charity that aims to tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness, and for Apex Scotland, a community justice and employment third sector organisation.

Helen joined SHAAP in October 2024 as Policy and Public Affairs Officer. She previously worked at the Scottish Legal Aid Board and also spent over four years in the Scottish Parliament working as a health and social care researcher for MSPs.

She graduated from the Open University in 2020 with an MA in English.

Chloé joined SHAAP in August 2021. She is a graduate of Durham University where she studied Research Methods (Sociology) for her Masters in 2017. Previously, she completed a BA in Sociology at Trinity College, Connecticut, USA. Her particular interest in alcohol awareness and policy stems from witnessing varying attitudes to alcohol whilst living and studying in different countries, having grown up in France and studied at universities in the United States and the UK.

Jodie joined SHAAP in November 2022 as a Research and Projects Officer. She is currently completing her PhD at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) on women’s experiences of gambling and drinking alcohol.

Jodie graduated from GCU in 2016 with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, before going on to complete a PGDE at University of Strathclyde. Afterwards, Jodie went on to teach secondary school Psychology, before beginning her PhD studies.

Jodie is a member of the Scottish Alcohol Research Network and a committee member of the Drinking Studies Network.

Consultant Hepatologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh 1992-2021; appointed to help establish and run the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit; past-president of the Scottish Society of Gastroenterology; previous hepatology advisor to Scottish Government; served on Council of Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; former non-executive director of UK Transplant.

Current Vice-Chair of SHAAP.

Mathis is a consultant hepatologist working in the West of Scotland. He studied in Germany and trained in Switzerland, England and Boston before moving to Scotland. He worked in the Birmingham Liver Unit as a The Wellcome Trust funded research registrar obtaining his PhD and as a lecturer of Birmingham University.

Sparked by the staggering epidemiology of morbidity and mortality from alcohol related liver disease in Scotland he has done significant research work and teaching in particular related to alcoholic liver disease. He initiated and conducted epidemiological work on hospitalisations for alcoholic liver disease (CSO funded in collaboration with health economists from Glasgow University). He was awarded a Quality and Safety Fellowship by NHS Scotland and has led qualitative research to develop the service for patients with alcohol related liver disease and for people who attend the hospital frequently.

Mathis works hard to reduce health inequities and is an advocate for all people with alcohol problems, in particular the often neglected and underserved but important group of patients with liver disease. He is the specialty advisor to the Scottish Chief Medical Officer and a specialty adviser to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

Dr Seonaid Anderson is a Consultant Addictions Psychiatrist who works with a community addictions team in NHS Tayside.  She is also a member of the only Alcohol Care Team in Scotland.

Seonaid teaches undergraduates at the University of Dundee Medical School and for the last 3 years, she has been involved in setting up and delivering Conversation Cafes in several Scottish Medical Schools.”

Prof John Dillon is Professor of Hepatology and Gastroenterology and a principal investigator, in the Division of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Dundee, based at Ninewells hospital, Dundee. He is also an Honorary Consultant with NHS Tayside, leading a busy general hepatology service and a research group.

He is Vice President for Hepatology of the British Society of Gastroenterology and was President of the Scottish Society of Gastroenterology. He graduated in medicine from St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, and subsequently gained his MD based on research performed in the University of Edinburgh while a lecturer in Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Sarah is Chief Executive and Nurse Director at the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland. Sarah is a mental health nurse and has worked in a range of roles in clinical practice, national workforce development, training, supervision, consultancy, academic teaching and research. She has led projects and programmes of work for NHS Education for Scotland and completed her doctoral research with a scholarship from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Sarah has a particular interest in relational, psychodynamic approaches and in the creation of conditions that support sensitive, expert provision of health and social care especially for those facing poverty and adversity.

Consultant Hepatologist at Glasgow Royal Infirmary since 2003. MD Research at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow. Chair of the Alcohol Harms Group for the Glasgow ADP. Interests in alcoholic liver disease and portal hypertension.

Involved in the development of the Glasgow Alcoholic Hepatitis Score (GAHS) and other areas of outcomes research in liver disease. Co-developer of the Glasgow Modified Alcohol Withdrawal Score (GMAWS).

Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Oral Surgery at Glasgow University’s Dental School, her research interests include alcohol and violence and she has published in both of these fields. Christine has worked extensively to research the efficacy of ABI in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Glasgow and their efficacy is such that alcohol interventions are now provided as part of normal care to facial trauma patients.

She has also been involved in encouraging the dental profession to include routine alcohol enquiry for every patient and this has been adopted by SDCEP as part of their Oral Health Assessment and Review. She has recently been involved in the first trials of sobriety testing using remote transdermal alcohol monitors in the UK in both student and offending groups.

She set up Medics against Violence in 2008 and through this organisation provides school interventions on violence and alcohol as well as training for health professionals in dealing with domestic abuse and rape and sexual assault. Alcohol features prominently in all these other areas.

Lesley is a retired public health doctor. She was the public health lead for alcohol, drugs and health in justice for Information Services Division (ISD), National Services Scotland (now Public Health Scotland).

She has worked extensively in the alcohol field in the areas of epidemiology, advocacy, policy and evaluation as well as research both in Scotland and internationally. She is a founding member of SHAAP.

Harpreet trained in general practice before going into public health. He worked as a consultant in public health medicine in Lanarkshire focusing on prevention, including screening programmes, alcohol and drug misuse services, and partnership working with local authorities.

He then worked as a Medical Advisor in NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) before returning to NHS Lanarkshire as Director of Public Health and Health Policy. He retired in 2017.

Harpreet is a trustee of a charity called UK-Med and a Board member of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

Rebecca Lawrence trained as a GP, then as a psychiatrist and became a Consultant in Addiction Psychiatry in 2005, first in the Scottish Borders, then in Lothian. She currently works in the Ritson Clinic, a specialist in-patient addictions unit in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, as well as in the Lothian Chronic Pain Service.

She is an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and is Chair of the Addictions Faculty RCPsych in Scotland. She has bipolar disorder and has written about being both doctor and patient in her personal blog and in a series of Guardian Opinion articles.

Dr Maguire has worked as a Consultant in Emergency Medicine since 2005. During this time he has also worked as a Clinical Researcher. His PhD thesis (2019) examined the role of thiamine and magnesium in intermediary metabolism in the context of alcohol related disease processes and the systemic inflammatory response.

He has served as Chief Investigator and Principal Investigator on several RCTs. He is Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at University of Glasgow and Chair of the Glasgow Research Emergency Medicine Network.

Dr Jackson specialised in neuro-developmental paediatrics. Her previous role in NHS Lothian was the development and organisation of Learning Disability Services for children and young people. She co-chaired the SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network) 156 Group that, in 2019, published the first UK Clinical Guideline for Children and Young people exposed prenatally to alcohol.

Her teaching and research interests include raising awareness about FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) as a lifelong condition, the development of e-Learning programs for Scottish Government, and online courses for paediatricians through the RCPCH, and educational events for GPs and other health colleagues.

As a member of the Scottish Government Preconception Health and Care Collaborative she has a strong interest in prevention of alcohol harm through better support and information to those planning a pregnancy.

Alcohol affects the lives of children and young people in so many ways, and I am pleased to have this opportunity to represent the RCPCH on the SHAAP steering group and I look forward to contributing to their important work.

Originally a GP in inner-city Glasgow, David has been an addiction doctor for the second half of his career. He was, until recently, Clinical Lead at the Lothians & Edinburgh Abstinence Programme, (LEAP), a residential rehabilitation service he founded. He has extensive clinical experience of treating patients for alcohol dependence.
David has previously been a tutor on the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Substance Misuse Management course and has worked with the Scottish Government as a member of various groups including the Drug Strategy Delivery Commission, the National Drug and Alcohol Delivery Group and Partnership for Action on Drugs in Scotland.
As part of a group representing the Scottish Government, he contributed to the update of the Orange Book (Drug Misuse and Dependence National Clinical Guidelines) in 2017. He currently chairs the Scottish Government’s Residential Rehabilitation Working Group which seeks to improve access to rehab, to increase capacity and to improve quality of services.
He supports the Scottish Government’s residential rehabilitation team with policy development and implementation. In addition, he has worked with NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland teams as a subject matter expert in addictions.
He is interested in the neurobiology of addiction, the value of lived experience, mutual aid and recovery communities and in recovery-oriented systems of care to support those with addictive disorders. He has authored or co-authored around 15 published papers including two Scottish residential treatment outcome studies.

John is currently employed as a consultant in public health for NHS Grampian where his remit includes drugs and alcohol as well as TB and blood borne viruses.

Originally trained in biochemistry and pharmacology at the University of Strathclyde, John completed an MPH on a Carnegie scholarship at the University of Glasgow after being inspired by working in grassroots community health projects. After five years at Health Protection Scotland specialising in the epidemiology of respiratory infectious diseases, John undertook FPH Specialist training which he completed in 2009.

Since qualifying he has mainly been based in academic roles but always with strong links (including P/T attachments), to public health teams and departments from local councils and NHS Boards through to Public Health England and an MRC Fellowship at the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research & Policy. During and since qualifying,

John has maintained a strong interest in harm prevention policies and interventions for alcohol and substance misuse and was awarded the Faculty of Public Health’s President’s Medal in 2020, in recognition of his research and policy translation work in this area.

Dr Catriona Morton has been a partner in a Deep End practice in Edinburgh since 1996 and a member of RCGP since she trained as a GP in Manchester. She has been a long-standing member of Lothian’s LMC and GP Sub-Committee and for five years was Chair of both. She is a member of the Scottish GP Committee.

Catriona has an interest in interface working with a history of involvement in NHS Lothian groups including the Interface Group, the GP Prescribing Committee, and the primary care – laboratory group. She works as a Referrals Advisor.

She also has an interest in health inequalities and has been a member of the GPs at the Deep End Group since its inception.

Moira Plant is Emeritus Professor of Alcohol Studies at the University of West of England in Bristol, UK and Adjunct Professor at Curtin University Perth Australia.  Moira’s main interests include women, alcohol and mental health, drinking in pregnancy and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).

Moira was the UK lead on the Gender Alcohol and Culture: An International Project (GENACIS) which includes over 40 countries worldwide.  She is consultant to the Fetal Alcohol Advice and Support team (FAAST) at Edinburgh University and is working with the Queens Nursing Institute Scotland (QNIS) to develop training packages on preconceptual care for community nurses and midwives.

She is a UK consultant to the US Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (CIFASD).   Moira is a psychotherapist and trains and supervises counsellors.

RCPsych rep; Former SHAAP Steering Group Chair.

Former Consultant Psychiatrist, NHS Tayside Alcohol Problems Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer, Medical School, University of Dundee. Researched and published on health information and communication, on the counselling relationship in alcohol misuse treatment, as well as on more traditional medical topics such as cell changes in oral cancer.

Involved in strategic issues both locally and nationally, in the planning and delivering of integrated, multi-agency care and treatment.

Iain Smith has specialised in the field of addiction psychiatry as a Consultant for 22 years and maintains a busy clinical practice at Gartnavel Hospital, Glasgow.

Iain has served on the executive committee of the Faculty of Addictions of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK and as Training Programme Director for general  psychiatry in the West of Scotland and as chair of the Scottish Addiction Specialist Committee. He is Regional Adviser for the Medical Council on Alcohol(UK).

Longstanding research interests include alcohol-related brain damage as well as the history of psychiatry . Iain is currently research coordinator for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Addiction Services and for the Advanced Psychiatric Training Scheme in the West of Scotland.

Dr Daphne Varveris is a Consultant Anaesthetist in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and Scottish CMO Speciality Advisor for Anaesthesia and Intensive Care.

As Chair of the Scottish Board RCoA, she supports the specialty input into wider preventative health issues as a steering group member of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) and Obesity Action Scotland.