Medical Directors

Dr Ruttley is a Medical Director at East London Foundation Trust (ELFT), based in Luton and at the Trust’s headquarters in Aldgate. Her clinical portfolio includes Trust-wide Community Health Services and Mental Health and Wellbeing services across Bedfordshire. In addition to her clinical responsibilities, she holds several corporate roles, including Named Doctor for Safeguarding Adults, Flu Lead, and Medical Workforce Lead. She also works as an appraiser and mentor.

In her current clinical post, Dr Ruttley serves as the team psychiatrist for the Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC), a problem-solving court. She has extensive experience in addiction psychiatry, developed through liaison work in acute hospitals, community alcohol services, and detoxification units.

Dr Ruttley has more than 15 years’ experience as a Liaison Psychiatrist, working across a range of acute hospital settings. In this role, she has cared for patients with mental health needs alongside complex physical illness, as well as those experiencing perinatal mental health conditions. Her particular clinical interests include bariatric and renal psychiatry. She also maintains a strong interest in clinical ethics and medical law, having completed a Master’s degree in the Legal Aspects of Medical Practice at Cardiff University.

She holds an endorsement in Liaison Psychiatry and completed her specialist training in General Adult Psychiatry on the East London Higher Training Rotation. Dr Ruttley began her consultant career as a Locum Consultant in Liaison Psychiatry at The Royal London Hospital in Tower Hamlets, before taking up a substantive consultant post with West London NHS Trust in 2009, working at Imperial NHS Healthcare NHS Trust.

From 2015 to 2019, she served as Clinical Director at West London NHS Trust. She then returned to East London Foundation Trust to take up a Clinical Director role in Bedfordshire and was appointed Medical Director in 2021.