Robert Patton

Dr Bob Patton is a lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of Surrey. He is a Chartered Psychologist, Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Scientist.

During the 1990s he worked for the Home Office Drugs Prevention Initiative as a consultant, and then as a research associate in health promotion for the University of Northumbria, before moving to London where he has worked for Kings College London (medical education), Royal Holloway (violence prevention), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (cancer communication), Imperial College London (alcohol) and for King’s Health Partners where he was the Health Services Research Coordinator at the National Addiction Centre between 2004 - 2011. Most recently he was a Research Fellow in Addiction at the King's College London working on the NIHR SIPs Jr Research Program, on which he was also Principal Investigator with responsibility for Patient & Public involvement.

His current academic interests include the development of mental health smartphone Apps, Alcohol Identification and Brief Advice, physical health needs of IDUs, Health Professionals training in alcohol interventions and the relationships between drug misuse and sexual health / risk taking. His PhD thesis explored brief interventions for alcohol misuse, and his book based on that and related studies is available here. Academia aside, Bob plays keyboards in a variety of musical collectives and has also worked as a nurse, youth worker, mystery shopper and IT consultant. Until recently he also lived on a boat.