Principal Investigators: Professor Sam Chamberlain and Dr Jeremy Solly

University of Southampton/Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Start Date: July 2025

End Date: June 2026

Summary

We planned to increase our ability to engage with people with lived experience of gambling harms and improve our future research projects. We achieved this through three types of activity over the course of a year:

1.We set up a Lived Experience Advisory Group and substantially increased the number and diversity of its members. We developed new and more inclusive ways to tell people about the group and for them to sign up.

2.We identified >100 organizations across our catchment area relevant to gambling harms. We have developed new relationships with local authorities and charities to learn from their expertise and raise the profile of our service.

3.Our Lived Experience Advisory Group has helped us to develop six research grants.

What we did with our new knowledge

Our Lived Experience Advisory Group has already contributed to a number of ongoing service development projects, including those related to treatment pathways and digital communication with patients. The Group is currently working with us to co-produce a new workbook for one of our treatment programmes.

By working with local authority and charity partners, we have focused on learning how to better support those experiencing digital exclusion, those experiencing homelessness, and those who are going through criminal justice proceedings.

Our Lived Experience Advisory Group is now a key part of our service and we aim for the group to have a voice in all our future service development and research activities.

We have initiated new service evaluation projects looking specifically at digital inclusion and homelessness, so we can identify new ways to effectively support people.

We will continue to build our network across the region, to learn from partner organisations and ensure that people working to support those affected by gambling harms are aware of our service.