Sarah Rae

Patient representative / advocate

About Me

Sarah Rae is an independent Expert by Experience who recently stepped down from the Board at national Mind after serving nine years as a trustee. She continues in her role as a trustee of National Voices which is the coalition of charities that stands for people being in control of their health and care.

Sarah was a Non-Executive Director of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England from 2011-2019. Her role on the ARC Board was to champion Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research.

She co-founded and co-lead the PROMISE (Proactive Management of Integrated Services and Environments) project from 2014-2017. The impact of this coproduced quality improvement programme was to significantly reduce the use of physical interventions within the CPFT. 

Sarah is co-leading a large funding application which was recently submitted to the NIHR. The project combines a Systems Approach with Realist research to coproduce the tools and guidance that are needed to support staff and service users to meaningfully plan for people to leave mental health inpatient units.

She is currently working as a Service User Consultant to the Safety in Mental Health Settings project which aims to investigate the apparent increase in serious incidents of violence and aggression on acute care wards in London’s mental health Trusts in order to recommend improvement action and where possible standardise and improve best practice.  

Sarah also sits as a Lay member on the NICE Guideline Committee which is revising the guidance on self-harm and is a member of the Health Foundation’s Q Community. 

Sarah was recently appointed as one of the PPI members who will be working alongside colleagues at the NIHR National ARC Mental Health and Wellbeing Collaboration. The Collaboration is a national research network that was launched to prioritise mental health care and drive changes in mental health practice.

Condition interest or area of knowledge

• Mental Health

Where I can help

• Cambridgeshire
• Norfolk
• Suffolk
• UK (National)

Organisations I am involved with: 

• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust (CPFT)
• EoE Citizens’ Senate
• CLAHRC (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) EoE
• MIND
• National Voices
• Health Foundation Q Community
• Anglia Ruskin University