Dr Sarah Jarvis MBE

She entered partnership in a busy inner city London practice in 1990. She became a GP trainer in 1994, and has trained no fewer than 27 aspiring GPs.

Sarah has been the resident doctor for the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 for the last 16 years. She has been doctor to the One Show  on BBC One for the last 10 years, and also appears on Good Morning Britain on ITV, BBC World News, BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 live, Channel 5 news and LBC. In addition, she writes regular columns in Good Housekeeping  and My Weekly magazines. She is the author of six books, including The Welcome Visitor, a book on the ethics of dying co-authored with John Humphrys; Women's Health for Life, winner of the BMA Book Award for best lay publication in 2009; and three books in the popular 'For Dummies' series. Her latest book is the third edition of Diabetes for Dummies.

In 2013, Sarah became clinical consultant to Patient.co.uk, and has continued to write regular blogs for them through their expansion and metamorphosis to Patient.info. In 2017, she made the difficult decision to change her role from GP partner to GP locum, in order to allow her to take up a new role as Clinical Director at Patient.info.

In the 2018 New Year's Honours list, Sarah was awarded an MBE for services to general practice and the public understanding of health.

At heart, Sarah is a GP. It's all she's ever wanted to do since the age of 8, when the GP came to do a home visit and gave her the needle and syringe he'd used when he left. It may be frowned on nowadays by health and safety, but that needle and syringe allowed Sarah to practise injecting her teddy bear with Ribena, and led her to where she is today. Sarah has always been passionate about helping patients to take control of their own health. When she was first training, most of the emphasis was on curing disease - she finds it hugely gratifying to see how much more medicine today is about partnership between patient and doctor, and maintaining good health.

Patients today are under huge time pressure, and it's hard to take in all the information the doctor gives when you're sitting in a consulting room feeling ill or worrying about your health. More and more patients are also living with long-term health conditions, where diet, lifestyle and self-management play a major role in long term outcomes. Sarah has never been more convinced of the need for really high-quality medical information, in a user-friendly format, to allow patients to make the informed decisions they need to be in control of their own health.

That's why she feels she can make a real difference by working with Patient as they undertake a major expansion of their website. Sarah has been using the high-quality information on Patient.info on a daily basis for years, directing patients to the reliable, comprehensive information Patient.info's leaflets offer to help them learn more about managing their conditions. Now patient.info is branching out, to offer more opportunities than ever for people to take charge of their own good health, as well as their illness. Online apps from patient.info offer health information on the move, so hopefully there's no excuse for not being fully informed on all aspects of health and, now, well-being.

Sarah will continue to be writing regular blogs, but will be offering even more frequent and timely summaries of latest medical news in bite-sized chunks.