Biography

Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones OBE is a medical doctor and neuroscience researcher working as consultant psychiatrist in addictions ( CNWL NHS Trust).

  • Appointed by The Crown to support the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London Sir Kenneth Olissa OBE and assigned to serve in the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, (2024).
  • Current Vice President of the Royal Society of Medicine (2022-2025).
  • Appointed as the country’s first National Clinical Advisor on Gambling Harms in 2022.
  • She was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year’s Honours for Services to Addiction Treatment and to Research.
  • Recipient of the prestigious ‘Psychiatrist of the Year’ Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2020.
  • Immediate Past President of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Psychiatry Section (2020-2022).
  • Past President of the Medical Women’s Federation.
  • Honorary Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University.
  • Honorary Professor, Faculty of Brain Sciences, UCL.
  • Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Spokesperson on Behavioural Addictions.
  • Elected member of the Board of Science, British Medical Association (2021-2024).

She is an expert advisor to both Westminster and the House of Lords on matters pertaining to gambling disorder, gaming disorder and mental health.

Graduating in medicine and specialising in psychiatry with a CCST in addiction psychiatry, Henrietta also pursued a research career and has a Doctorate in Medicine in the field of Neuroscience from Imperial College with a thesis on ‘Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex dysfunction as an indicator of early relapse in Alcohol Dependency’.

Founder and Director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic, the first NHS treatment centre in the UK for the treatment of Gambling Disorder which she set up in 2008.

She is also the founder and Director of the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, the first NHS clinic in the UK dedicated to treating Gaming Disorders which she set up in 2019 as part of the NHS Long Term Plan.

Founder and joint Chair of the National UK Research Network for Behavioural Addictions (NUK-BA) based at both Cambridge University and Southampton and comprising of several researchers from leading universities.

Executive Board member of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Addiction (ISSBA).

Member of the WHO Advisory Board on Gaming Disorders.