Dr Michael Spencer is Consultant Psychiatrist at the First Response Service – the front-line NHS mental health service covering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the Pain Management Centre, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is Chair of the Chronic Pain Special Interest Group of the European Association for Psychosomatic Medicine.

He qualified from the University of Cambridge, and completed his training in Cambridge and Edinburgh. He has lectured at the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh, and he has practised as a Consultant Psychiatrist since 2008. He was awarded the Donald Cohen Fellowship by the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2007, an academic MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree by the University of Cambridge in 2008, the Clinician Scientist Fellowship by the MRC in 2008 and was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2016.

Dr Spencer has a particular interest in the interactions that can exist between physical and psychological conditions, particularly in chronic pain and psychological trauma. He has worked in NHS multidisciplinary pain clinics, has served as a Council Member of the Pain Section at the Royal Society of Medicine, and Assistant Editor of the Journal of Observational Pain Medicine. He is a Council Member of the London Pain Forum, a member of the British Pain Society, the British Neuropsychiatric Association and the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine, and a founding member of the Functional Neurological Disorder Society. In June 2024 Dr Spencer was elected Chair of the Chronic Pain Special Interest Group of the European Association for Psychosomatic Medicine. He is the author of the Trauma chapter of the 4th edition of the APIL Guide to Clinical Negligence, lectures and examines on the University College London MSc Course in Neuromodulation, and has been a co-organiser of the Cambridge Annual Medico-Legal Conference since 2014.