About
Dr Anshul Swami is a consultant general adult psychiatrist and specialist in addictions and substance misuse disorders at Priory.
He is certified by the General Medical Council as holding special qualifications and expertise in the management of addiction sciences/substance misuse disorders.
He holds specialist qualifications and has extensive clinical experience in treating patients with complex and severe drug difficulties (heroin and cocaine), harmful or dependent patterns of alcohol consumption, prescription medication problems, over the counter medication problems, club drug problems (which include the misuse of ketamine, mephedrone, GHB/GBL, legal highs and methamphetamines), chronic pain and resolving problems that other clinicians have found difficult to treat.
Dr Swami also sees patients that have inadvertently developed withdrawals or dependency to pain medication and sleeping (or benzodiazepine-type) medications, such as Valium®, after recovering from chronic pain, bereavement, operations, stress and long illnesses.
Dr Swami has worked in specialist stimulant clinics with young adults who are in their late teens and early twenties and are struggling with cannabis and club drug use. He has worked on inpatient residential drug detoxification units based at the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospitals, between 2003 and 2010.
Since completing his training (between 2010 and 2017), he worked in an NHS community complex care dual diagnosis service in North London, as a clinical lead. There he treated patients with combined, severe and enduring mental health problems and concurrent drug (including club/recreational drugs) and alcohol use. Between 2010 and 2014 he was the clinical lead and managed a detoxification wing in a large London prison.
Training
He is certified by the General Medical Council as holding special qualifications and expertise in the management of addiction sciences/substance misuse disorders.
Dr Swami qualified at the world renowned Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry in London. Here, his broad and intensive training encompassed the assessment and treatment of adults with severe mental health problems including refractory depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia/psychosis, adolescents with mental health problems, older adults with mental illness and concurrent dementia, eating disorders (requiring community and inpatient treatment), severe anxiety disorders, addictions (requiring community and inpatient treatment), as well as specialising in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
He later specialised at the Maudsley and the National Addiction Centre in assessing and treating patients with severe addictions. He was also an honorary clinical lecturer on the Kings College London and Institute of Psychiatry Masters of Science in Addiction programme. He has also taught junior psychiatrists, GP trainees, GPs specialised in substance misuse problems and is up-to-date with clinical supervision training and doctor appraisal training.
During the course of Dr Swami’s training he has worked with a large cohort of patients from black and ethnic minority groups who found it difficult to approach and engage with traditional mental health services.