Dr Lisa Schölin was recently awarded an SSA fellowship. She will be exploring the journey patients take as they engage with 999/NHS24 and ambulance services in Scotland.
Dr Lisa Schölin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She trained in public health science and research methods in Sweden before moving to the UK to complete an MSc and PhD. Her work has covered alcohol-related harm, preventing alcohol-exposed pregnancies, and the use of mental health legislation and compulsory psychiatric care. Her new SSA-funded fellowship will focus on emergency care for people experiencing substance use and mental health crises.
Understanding a missing piece of the picture
Scotland faces some of the highest rates of drug-related deaths, alcohol-related deaths and suicide in the UK. Research suggests that people who use drugs attend emergency departments around five times more often than the general population. When someone calls 999 (the emergency telephone number for ambulance, police, fire and rescue, and coastguard) or NHS24 because of an addiction or mental health crisis, it often reflects far more than an immediate emergency. It can represent the culmination of complex social, psychological, and health challenges, with emergency services stepping in when other forms of support have not been available or have failed.
Despite this, current data systems do not adequately capture the role that addiction and mental health play in emergency care encounters, making it difficult to understand the true scale of need, identify opportunities for earlier intervention, or design services that better meet people’s needs.
Working in partnership with NHS24, the Scottish Ambulance Service, Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH), and the Scottish Drugs Forum, Lisa will investigate how people experiencing addiction and mental health crises interact with emergency care services, and how those experiences can be better understood and improved.
Following the patient journey
Public health policy largely aims to support people before they reach crisis point. But when that support is unavailable or insufficient, the first professionals many people encounter are 999 and NHS24 call handlers or ambulance crews. Lisa’s fellowship will therefore focus on these crucial early stages of the healthcare system, following patients’ journeys from their first contact.
Lisa will begin by analysing anonymous patient records to explore how addiction and mental health-related emergencies are recorded. By comparing coded information with call notes written by call handlers and paramedics, Lisa hopes to understand why people seek emergency help, how their needs are documented, and how wider social circumstances shape these encounters.
She will also carry out observations within emergency response centres to better understand how staff assess calls, make decisions about care, and respond to people experiencing both addiction and mental health crises.
Shaped by lived experience
A key part of Lisa’s fellowship will focus on hearing directly from people who have used emergency services because of addiction or mental health issues, as well as their family members, friends, and carers. Lisa will explore how people experience emergency care, what works well, and where improvements are needed for both patients and those supporting them.
People with lived and living experience will also help shape the project through a dedicated advisory group, ensuring the research remains grounded in the realities of seeking emergency care.
“I hope that we can impact people who face issues with addiction by understanding better why they present to emergency care services, and what we can do to care for them.”
The fellowship will conclude by bringing together researchers, practitioners, and people with lived experience to co-develop a practical framework for improving emergency care. Lisa’s aim is to identify realistic actions that NHS24 and ambulance services can implement to better support people experiencing addiction and mental health crises, helping ensure that moments of emergency become opportunities for compassionate, effective care.
The SSA supports careers in addiction research through funding bursaries for postgraduate study and professional development, pre-doctoral support for the development of PhD applications, PhD studentships, post-doctoral support for the development of fellowship applications, and fellowships.
