Dr Roberts is an addiction psychiatrist and research fellow working in South London, working with people with addiction to substances as well as addictive behaviours, like gambling.

He conducts research looking at the impact of policy changes on patients, such as their ability to access healthcare services. He was the clinical lead for the Homeless Hotel Drug and Alcohol Service (HDAS) in London - the first such service covering all of London, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He has recently been awarded a 5 year fellowship developing interventions to improve care for people with drug use, and another fellowship in health policy. In this episode, we discuss drug consumption rooms, reasons for why the UK has had the highest drug-related deaths on record in the last year, and how policy and services could be different in order to address this.

These are some of the reports mentioned in the episode:

1. Lessons Learned from the Pan-London Homeless Hotel Drug & Alcohol Support Service (HDAS) https://osf.io/7cdbx/ 2. Three qualitative reports from KCL reporting on the “Experiences Of Being Housed In A London Hotel As Part Of The ‘Everyone In’ Initiative” https://osf.io/rt7j9/ 3.

Interviewed by Dr. Anya Borissova

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