Professor Isobel Heyman recognised with MBE in New Year's Honours
30 Dec 2022, 10:30 p.m.
Professor Isobel Heyman has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Professor Isobel Heyman is an honorary consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Psychological Medicine Team at Addenbrooke's Hospital. Professor Heyman is also an Honorary Professor at the University College Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH).
Professor Heyman founded the first UK specialist clinic for young people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related difficulties. Additionally, she became liaison psychiatrist to the epilepsy surgery program at GOSH, and clinical lead for the Tourette Syndrome clinic.
A voice for children and young people’s mental health
Professor Heyman’s work in research, clinical practice, teaching, leadership and strategic advice at the interface of physical and mental health is recognised both nationally and internationally.
View Professor Heyman’s academic publications here.
She is employed by Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust as child psychiatry clinical lead for Cambridge Children's Hospital development project – a new hospital programme which will for the first time fully integrate physical and mental health care – reducing stigma and ensuring equal care.
I am deeply appreciative of this honour. With the group-effort of skilled clinical teams, it is an enormous privilege to care for children and families experiencing the most difficult of times. I am proud of the work we have done to improve clinical care.
Our current project - the Cambridge Children's Hospital - fully integrates physical and mental health care for the first time.
None of the initiatives to put mental health research into clinical practice would have been possible without the collaboration of my Institute of Child Health colleague, Professor Roz Shafran and Cambridge University colleague Professor Tamsin Ford.
There is much more to be done to ensure all young people receive the mental health care they need - so it is important and gratifying for child mental health to be recognised in an award.
In recognition of her work, Professor Heyman has also been awarded:
- ‘Psychiatrist of the Year’ award by the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2015
- CAMHS team of the year with her Psychological Medicine Team at GOSH in 2019
- ‘Mental Health Team of the Year’ award from the British Medical Journal in 2021 for the drop-in mental health project ‘The Lucy Booth’

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