Dr Sakel is the founding Director/Consultant Physician of the Neuro-rehabilitation Service for East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT). He founded the service in 2003 and subsequently developed it to achieve National Level 2 Status recognition in 2012, ie. the service is recognised as a specialist neuro-rehabilitation service, which provides specialist multi-disciplinary team clinical care for people with complex neurological conditions. This is now the only specialist NHS neuro-rehabilitation service in the South East of England and it serves a population of about 1 million people. He also founded and leads the Spasticity Service for East Kent, which provides comprehensive and effective spasticity management for patients via weekly Out-patient clinics.

Dr Sakel has extensive clinical research experience as a Chief and Principal Investigator in large scale multi-centre trials. His research portfolio includes: Brain Computer Interface (EEG neurofeedback) to reduce chronic neuropathic pain; robotic exoskeleton and balance; epidemiology of traumatic brain injury; non-invasive neuro-modulation; clinical research in migraine and Parkinson’s Disease; hemi-spatial neglect in stroke; Botulinum Toxin and spasticity and Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness.

Dr Sakel is regularly invited to be a speaker at International conferences and is considered a key opinion leader with over 90 publications on improving neuro-rehabilitation care and leadership.