According to official government figures, there are around 450,000 problem gamblers in the UK. The government estimates problem gambling costs the country £1.27bn per year. If we accept the government figure, that is 450,000 individuals with an addiction that causes them stress and anxiety and individual harms. Each of those individuals affects around three to five other people (family members, employers, their wider community). However, problem gambling is not evenly distributed through the population, meaning some communities are more severely affected than others. Unlike drug and alcohol addiction, current NHS (National Health Service) systems are not set up to capture data on problem gambling. Since the last full national survey of the issue in 2010, UK government data has been gathered from a bolt-on to public health work, with fewer questions. The limitations in current data collection mean there are grounds for believing the actual number of problem gamblers is underrepresented, and anecdotal evidence from professionals suggests numbers might be significantly higher. GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM The Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust were picking up that a greater proportion of people with mental health problems than they would expect also had an issue with gambling. There was no way for them to establish how many people were affected, as the NHS had no agreed way of recording it. It was apparent that we needed to find out more about these anecdotal findings. The initial plan was to work with the Trust on a small pilot study to test whether a brief screening tool would help identify patients experiencing problem gambling. As other organisations heard about the project, they asked to take part. We are now working with Blackburn Foodbank and Blackpool Citizens Advice Bureau, alongside the Trust. This project will provide a snapshot of the situation in Blackpool and Blackburn districts. Our aims are three-fold: • To establish if there is a bigger gambling problem than previously thought. Once we have an idea of the scale in two regions of Lancashire, we want to look across the whole Northwest of England. • To devise a unified way for help- seeking organisations to record problem gambling. This would cover health services, police, voluntary services, advice services such as Citizens Advice Bureaus, and foodbanks. It would give them an agreed definition of what they are looking for, and an agreed way of recording it. • To bring this invisible addiction into the light. It needs to be discussed more in public. Often the first time a family member realises there is a problem is when the bailiffs are knocking at the door. We are using a short set of questions to assess key markers for problem gambling. These are a combination of two existing screening tools plus an additional question based on the findings of my Gambling and Debt project. The questions are designed to notice when an important line has been crossed – when gambling is no longer a bit of fun, but starts to take over all aspects of life. Our study encompasses people seeking help for mental health, with debt, or from foodbanks. People seeking help from foodbanks or for debt tend to be more representative of the general population, while people experiencing poor mental health may be more likely to have some sort of underlying addiction issue. This means we should expect rates of problem gambling identified to be around the national average in the population using the foodbank or seeking debt advice, but a little higher in the population experiencing poor mental health. The initial data is concerning. As we suspected, prevalence rates are much higher than they should be according to government figures, even when you consider that some of our figures come from those groups where you would expect slightly higher rates. The headline rate, according to the government, is 0.2% of people are problem gamblers. Our initial findings suggest a rate some 10 to 20-times higher. Sadly, this does not surprise me, as it is a consequence I predicted when gambling regulations were relaxed in 2005. WORRYING EFFECTS Gambling is a hidden addiction. If a family member or close friend drinks, you notice that they are intoxicated. If they are using drugs, you can notice they are ill. With gambling, the signs can be less obvious. Somebody can have their phone in their hand, and you do not know if they are playing on a gambling site or checking emails. Usually, problem gamblers can hold down a job, unlike many alcoholics or drug users. People stop spending money on alcohol or drugs when they pass out, but people can and do carry on gambling 24/7, only stopping when they run out of money. This means people can rapidly build up vast amounts of debt. Problem gamblers have an extremely high suicide rate compared to other addictions. As with other addicts, they may turn to acquisitive crime to fund their addiction. Problem gamblers also experience physical health problems. They suffer from anxiety, often present with digestive problems, raised blood pressure, and so on. There are cases of intimate partner violence, because of 10 |
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