About
Dr Diana Coffey has worked as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS, the independent sector and the Ministry of Defence. After ten years as a Consultant in Forensic psychiatry, she returned to General Adult and Old Age psychiatry. She has extensive experience in the inpatient and outpatient management of psychiatric cases.
Prior to her psychiatric training, she worked in general medicine and surgery. This invaluable experience formed her overall clinical management of patients, with emphasis not only on mental health symptoms but also physical health issues. Dr Coffey remains interested in new developments and aims to keep up to date with medical progress. This ensures that her patients benefit from a holistic assessment and treatment to maximise their recovery chances.
Dr Coffey applies the best current evidence- based treatments and guidelines to help her patients. She is following NICE guidelines, advice from the BNF (British National Formulary) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
She can also offer a Genetic test for optimising treatment choices in psychiatric disorders. This could only be offered after a comprehensive initial assessment.
Dr Coffey’s areas of expertise include:
- Complex affective disorders
- Cognitive and neuropsychiatric problems
- Women specific mental health problems
- Medicolegal assessments
Dr Coffey is experienced in assessing, diagnosing and treating complex mental health disorders in adults over the age of 18 including:
- Concentration problems
- Emotional instability
- Mental health problems due to physical health issues
- Memory problems, dementia (Alzheimer’s type, Vascular, Mixed, Lewy body, Parkinson’s disease etc), mild cognitive impairment and other related conditions.
- Menopausal mood changes and stress
- Psychosis
- Women specific mental health problems
Training
- Dr Coffey completed her initial psychiatric training at Guy’s and St Thomas’ training scheme in London, then went on to complete her specialist training in forensic psychiatry at North Thames training scheme in London and Essex.
- She has additional training in psychotherapy (intensive training course in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and applies these psychotherapeutic skills in her practice.
- Dr Coffey is an accredited medical appraiser and provides medical appraisals for the members of the Independent Doctors Federation. She is involved in regular Quality improvement audits and attends regular training events for medical appraisers.
- Dr Coffey is a well-established medicolegal expert. She holds Cardiff University Law School Bond Solon Expert Witness Certificate and CPR35 Certificate.
- Member of the Independent Doctors Federation
- Member of the General Adult Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Member of a Special interest group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Private Practice & Independent Practice and Women & Mental Health
Research interests
- Dr Coffey has taken part in the National Audit of the POMH- UK (Prescribing Observatory for Mental Health UK) regarding “Monitoring of Patients prescribed Lithium”, March 2019.
- Dr Coffey completed various clinical audits on interface between physical and mental health (Vitamin D status of inpatients, Combination of a high dose Quetiapine and Sodium Valproate and abnormal neutrophil count and others).
- She presented a poster with the results of her audit “Female remand prisoners with psychological and behavioural problems during their detoxification programme at HMP Holloway” at the Annual Forensic Conference in Liverpool, February 2008.
Languages
- English
- German
- Russian