Dr Catherine Spencer-Smith

Dr Cath Spencer-Smith is a Sport and Exercise Medicine Consultant at Bath Clinic, and she has extensive experience in treating Olympian, Paralympian, and professional sportsmen and women. She also loves helping active people with sports injuries and musculoskeletal problems and has a particular interest in helping runners, triathletes, and people with hip and groin pain, arthritis, and stress fractures.

Dr Spencer-Smith earned her medical degree from St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in 1995 and later completed her master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Medicine at Bath University in 2005.  Recognised for her expertise, she became a Fellow of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (UK) in 2013 and has served as a Sports Doctor at numerous Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

Her professional engagements have taken her across various domains, including GB rowing, track and field athletics, elite golf, marathoning, football, rugby, triathlon, tennis, and adventure sports. Moreover, she has collaborated with the British Military and provided her services to professional dancers and performers.

Dr Spencer-Smith developed an MSc Programme in Exercise Rehabilitation for Bangor University and has been a lecturer at Bangor and Bath Universities, as well as teaching UCL Sports Doctors in training.

Cath is passionate about getting to the root cause of a problem, and she treats her patients in a very holistic way. She liaises closely with physios, osteos, surgeons, podiatrists, and strength and conditioning coaches, to ensure her patients have the support of a robust, multidisciplinary team.

When you come to clinic:

Cath will listen carefully to what’s been troubling you, how long it’s been going on, and she’ll ask lots of questions about your symptoms, the way your problem came about, and how you may have been training. She’ll ask about your goals, what you may have tried so far to get better, and what’s important to you in life.

She will carefully examine you, watching how you move, looking for poor controlled or limited movement that may be showing up in other areas of your body, that might be contributing to your problem.

Diagnostic tests (such as MRI scanning) may be recommended to confirm your diagnosis and to enable the proper planning of your treatment.

Occasionally a procedure (such as an ultrasound-guided injection) might be needed to get your recovery kick-started, and if you’ve been referred by your physio or osteopath, (with your permission) she’ll liaise with them about your rehab. She might also want to add in care from a podiatrist, clinical Pilates instructor, or a strength and conditioning coach (or personal trainer).

Most importantly, you’ll leave with a good understanding of how your injury occurred, what you can expect during your recovery, and how to be robust for your return to sport or your chosen activity.

She is happy to see patients who have cover with any of the major insurance companies (check with your insurer to see if a referral is required) and is delighted to help self-funding patients (no referral necessary). Cath loves to teach and has presented in several prime-time TV productions, and was named as one of Tatler's Top Sports Doctors of 2026 https://www.tatler.com/article/doctors-guide-sports-medicine-experts.

She considers herself to be a “mere mortal” marathoner and Ironman triathlete and she enjoys talking about all things running and cycling with her patients.

She lives in Bath with her husband and four Italian Greyhounds.