Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines

• Member of the UK Department of Transport expert panel that introduced drug-driving regulation.
• Currently a member of the UK government's Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs.
• The only pharmacist to have been made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
• Has been the lead author of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines since their inception in 1993. The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines have sold over 300,000 copies in fourteen editions and twelve languages.
• Co-author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines (2024)
• Author of around 450 clinical papers in journals such as the Lancet, BMJ, British Journal of Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. These papers have been cited over 25,000 times.

Dr Mark Horowitz MBBS PhD is Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry in the National Health Service (NHS) in London, Visiting Lecturer in Psychopharmacology at King's College London, an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at University College London and a trainee psychiatrist. He has a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London in the neurobiology of depression and antidepressant action. He is the lead author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines and is an associate editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology.

He co-authored the recent Royal College of Psychiatry guidance on 'Stopping Antidepressants', and his work informed the recent NICE guidelines on safe tapering of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines and z-drugs. He has worked with the NHS to develop national guidance for safe deprescribing for clinicians and has been commissioned by Health Education England to prepare a teaching module on how to safely stop antidepressants.

He has written several papers about safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications including publications in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry and Schizophrenia Bulletin. He has an interest in rational psychopharmacology and deprescribing psychiatric medication. He has experienced the difficulty of coming off psychiatric medications first hand which has informed much of his work.

Dr Northwood is a clinical academic psychiatrist, with combined clinical, research and teaching experience.

She graduated with an MBBS and PhD from the University of Queensland and has completed specialist training in psychiatry at Metro South Health, while continuing to engage in research. She has a particular interest in treatment-refractory schizophrenia and psychopharmacology.

Dr Northwood received the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) Early Career Psychiatrist award in 2024, and she is also a member of the RANZCP Congress 2025 Local Organising Committee to be held on the Gold Coast.