Rob Poole is Professor of Social Psychiatry and Co-Director of the Centre for Mental Health and Society at Bangor University. He worked as an NHS community psychiatrist for 21 years, in Liverpool and later North Wales. He has long standing clinical and research interests in the interactions between mental illness, substance misuse and social inequality. His current clinical role is in liaison psychiatry, and he works as part of a Pain Management Team. He received the Royal College of Psychiatrists Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.