Sheila Hollins, Baroness Hollins


Sheila Clare Hollins, Baroness Hollins, is a professor of the psychiatry of learning disability at St George's, University of London, and was created a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords on 15 November 2010 taking the title Baroness Hollins, of Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton and of Grenoside in the County of South Yorkshire.
She was President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists from 2005 to 2008, succeeded by Dinesh Bhugra. From 2012 to 2013 she was president of the British Medical Association and was formerly chair of the BMA Board of Science. In 2014 Pope Francis appointed her a member of the newly created Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The Baroness is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Centre for Child Protection.

Personal life

Hollins is married to Martin Hollins. She is the mother of Abigail Witchalls, who was stabbed and left paralysed in 2005, and has a son, Nigel. She is a Roman Catholic.