Dr Paul Bester is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, with a well establised practice at the Priory Hospital Roehampton. He offers assesment and treatment for a range of conditions including anxiety, mood disorders, psychotic disorders, emerging personality difficulties, and developmental disorders such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and assesment of neurodiversity, including the diagnosis of autism spectrum condition and the management of related psychological impact.

Dr Bester is known for his compassion and care and prioritises connection with you and your child/teenager to encourage trust and open communication and will tailor his care to suit the individual needs of each child or young person. This may involve medication and /or co-working with an appropriate therapist(s).

Dr Bester has excellent working relationships with an extensive network of colleagues and therapists, and receives outstanding testimonials from his colleagues, patients and their parents.

He offers mainly outpatient treatment, but can also offer adolescent inpatient treatment.

If medication is indicated, Dr Bester will formulate a safe protocol, discuss the mechanisms and risks and provide support throughout. He works with Pharmacierge, who deliver privately prescribed medication to your door, and with NHS GPs -using shared care protocols to prescribe medication, when appropriate to do so safely, although many GPs are unable to prescribe specialist-only medications.

For complex treatment issues, and when indicated and/or specifically requested, he colloborates with Myogenes, who provides personalised pharmaco-genetic testing to assist clinicians to optimise treatment decisions and identify patient-specific genetic markers. This information provides guidance about which medication is likely to work as intended, as well as the risk of adverse effects. It involves an easy home- administered cheek (buccal) swab test.

Dr Bester completed specialist training based at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London in child and adolescent psychiatry, followed by a further full training in forensic psychiatry and spent the early part of his professional consultant career in the NHS. He also worked as an expert witness in child and family matters in the criminal and family courts for many years, and is also a fully trained forensic psychiatrist. For the last 11 years has devoted all his time to clinical practise. He has had opinion published in The Times and The Telegraph and various newspapers, and has presented at UK and international conferences. He has also published research in the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry.

Dr Bester currently consults only remotely via video (Zoom) for outpatients, and this has proved to be an ideal and patient-preferred mode of consultation. The clinic can be booked up and please note that urgent or emergency appointments are not available.

Medical Assessments and Treatments

• Autism (3di and ADOS-in person with a colleague)
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Depression
• Anxiety Disorder
• Emerging Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/Complex Trauma
• OCD
• Psychosis
• Complex co-occurring conditions, including gender dysphoria.

• MBBCh MRCPsych
• CCST (senior specialist training qualifications) in both Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry.