GIRFT’s clinical lead for mental health rehabilitation – Dr Sridevi Kalidindi CBE – has been honoured by her peers with a Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) lifetime achievement award.
Dr Kalidindi was presented with the award at the RCPsych’s Rehabilitation and Social Psychiatry Faculty 2025 annual conference, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to mental health in rehabilitation and social psychiatry.
It represented a full circle moment, as Dr Kalidindi created the award herself when she was chair of the faculty in 2015.
She said:
“I was incredibly moved to receive this lifetime achievement award, which means a great deal to me, not only as recognition of my work over the years, but as a reflection of the collective drive and shared purpose across our field. “I’ve been fortunate to work alongside brilliant colleagues, dedicated carers and experts by experience and - most importantly - patients, who have shaped everything we’ve done in rehabilitation psychiatry.”
A consultant rehabilitation psychiatrist at the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Kalidindi was appointed as the GIRFT clinical lead for mental health rehabilitation in 2018 with the goal of improving rehabilitation services nationally to in turn improve patient experience and outcomes.
In 2020, she embarked on a nationwide review of mental health rehabilitation services, involving virtual visits to all 56 providers. The resulting GIRFT national report for mental health rehabilitation was published in 2022, containing a range of recommendations with the overarching objective of enabling more people to receive mental health rehabilitation in a setting closer to their home and in the community whenever possible.
Since the report was published Dr Kalidindi has gone on to create a national network of colleagues committed to improving services, working together to bring patients closer to home, develop joined-up, whole system rehabilitation pathways, champion lived experience leadership as a core pillar of transformation and to influence and implement national policy, guidance and practice.
She said:
“I’m especially proud of the work with the GIRFT programme, which has grown into a thriving national collaboration. Senior clinical review manager Suzannah Davies and GIRFT programme lead Professor Tim Briggs deserve special mention for their support and work throughout. “This role has given me opportunities to contribute to policy, commissioning guidance, international partnerships and workforce wellbeing - all aiming to make the system more humane, responsive and effective.”
