Dr Sophie Farooque

Dr Farooque was the first National Trainee in Allergy in the UK and completed her specialist training at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust in 2006. At the end of her training, she was awarded a highly prestigious Clinical Research Fellowship by the Medical Research Council to read for a PhD at King's College London. She has worked as a consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (St Mary's) for 14 years and led the allergy department for over 10 of them.

A big believer in personalized medicine, she has been quoted as saying “the ability to transform lives often in the space of a single visit is one of the reasons I love my work. A lack of information helps no one. I have seen patients who have suffered unnecessarily with out of control allergies for years and others who have thought they are allergic to something, only to find that they are not. Hay fever is just one example, almost everyone can be helped yet so many people itch and wheeze and sneeze through the spring and summer when they don't have to. Food allergy is another area where people can struggle to access help. When it comes to drug allergy, far more people think they are allergic to medicines than actually are. This can have far-reaching consequences particularly when it comes to avoiding Penicillin unnecessarily”.

A strong advocate in making medicine accessible to the public and Dr Farooque has appeared multiple times on national television. She speaks publicly about allergies and has been interviewed in the Times and been quoted in the Guardian, Daily Mail and Daily Express amongst others. She has been listed as an Expert Panelist In Waitrose Health and has spoken about allergies on the Liz Earle and “What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You” podcasts. She is listed as a keynote speaker on “Speakers Corner” and is active on social media with over 13,000 followers on Twitter.

She believes that an important part of what she does is helping patients and their families to feel empowered about what to do and when to seek help. To this end, in March 2022, she published her first book called Understanding Allergy (Penguin Random House) aimed at both medical professionals and those suffering with allergy. It reached number 30 in the Amazon best sellers chart.