Profile
Brand New Day
Dr Edward Day has just been appointed as the
government’s drug recovery champion. He talks to DDN
about the challenges and opportunities of the new role
‘I
f I was going to pick one thing, it’s still the
stigma of drug use,’ says Dr Edward Day of
the challenges that his new role as the
government’s drug recovery champion will
need to address (see news, page 4). ‘There’s a
real job to do to break down the prejudice against
people who’ve had a drug problem.’
A 20-year veteran of the field, he started out at
what was then the regional addiction unit in
Birmingham while still a junior doctor training in
psychiatry. ‘That really sparked my interest,’ he says. ‘It
8 | drinkanddrugsnews | June 2019
was a very different world back then – a 25-bed unit
with an outpatient bit attached in the grounds of an
old psychiatric hospital, and we had probably a couple
of thousand patients who came from the whole of
the West Midlands. You got a detox and relatively
little else. But that patient group really spoke to me,
and I decided that this was what I was going to do.’
After completing his PhD he became a consultant
in an NHS drug service in Birmingham, and worked
there until he started his current role as consultant
psychiatrist at the Birmingham and Solihull Mental
Health NHS Foundation Trust five years ago. He’s also
clinical reader in addiction psychiatry at the
University of Birmingham, and now drug recovery
champion on top – isn’t that a lot to take on?
‘Well, I’ve always had a clinical/academic role, so
I’ve always juggled those two things,’ he says. ‘Half
my week is spent doing hands-on clinical work and
the research I do is all patient-centred, so the two
feed off each other. It can be a challenge at times but
the two sides of the job go hand in hand.’
He’s also been heavily involved in shaping national
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