Amy is a Research Fellow in the alcohol theme of the NIHR-funded Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London. She joined the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London (KCL) in 2014 having previously worked in government and the NHS. She holds a PhD in Health Services Research and a Master of Public Health.

Her research primarily focuses on people who have alcohol problems and complex needs, and in-depth evaluation of interventions that address their support needs. Her PhD thesis is a mixed methods economic evaluation of alcohol assertive outreach treatment (AAOT) for people who attend hospital frequently for alcohol-related reasons. She is co-investigator on the AAOT clinical trial and patient and public involvement (PPI) champion for the alcohol theme of NIHR ARC South London. She previously worked on two European Framework Programme (FP7) research projects, AMPHORA and ODHIN. In 2017 she was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust travelling fellowship to visit the United States and learn about services for high-need, high-cost (HNHC) patients.

Much of her work has been to link across policy, practice and research, and to support clinical addiction specialists in improving services locally and nationally. Before joining the IoPPN, Amy managed the Specialist Clinical Addiction Network (SCAN), hosted by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) and later, Public Health England (PHE). She has also worked in the Department of Health in England and the Department for Education and Skills. She holds an MA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Aberdeen and was an Erasmus student at the Universidad de Granada, Spain.

Research interests

• Treatment for people with addiction and complex needs
• High-need, high-cost patient care
• Evaluation of complex interventions
• Economic evaluation
• Qualitative research
• Mixed methods research methods
• Policy and practice interface
• Barriers to care

Key publications

Assertive outreach treatment versus care as usual for the treatment of high-need, high-cost alcohol related frequent attenders: Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Blackwood, R., Wolstenholme, A., Kimergård, A., Fincham-Campbell, S., Khadjesari, Z., Coulton, S., Byford, S., Deluca, P., Jennings, S., Currell, E., Dunne, J., O'Toole, J., Winnington, J., Finch, E. & Drummond, C., 14 Mar 2020, In: BMC Public Health. 20, 1, 332. Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

A National Survey of Assertive Outreach Treatment Services for People Who Frequently Attend Hospital due to Alcohol-Related Reasons in England

Fincham-Campbell, S., Kimergård, A., Wolstenholme, A., Blackwood, R., Patton, R., Dunne, J., Deluca, P. & Drummond, C., 2017, In: Alcohol and Alcoholism. 53, 3, p. 277-281 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Related articles

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/archive/news/ioppn/records/2019/april/alcohol-assertive-outreach-team-awarded-bmj-prize-for-mental-health-team-of-the-year

Thesis 

Economic evaluation of assertive outreach treatment for adults who frequently attend hospital for alcohol-related reasons, and qualitative exploration of factors that influence cost-effectiveness