Elaine Murphy, Baroness Murphy

Elaine Murphy, Baroness Murphy (born 1947) is a British psychiatrist, academic and politician who sits as an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords. After qualifying as a doctor she trained in psychiatry at London teaching hospitals, including the Royal Free, University College Hospitals and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, and also studied geriatric medicine at the London Hospital. She completed an MD while researching community mental health disorders with George Brown at the MRC Social Research Unit, and won the Royal College of Psychiatrists research prize in 1980. From 1983 to 1996 she held the first professorship of psychiatry of old age in the United Kingdom, at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals, and between 1984 and 1990 she worked as a National Health Service general manager. She was vice chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission, later chaired the North East London Strategic Health Authority, and became a life peer in 2004, taking a particular interest in mental health and ageing. She is best known for her studies of late life depression and for improving the care of people with dementia.