Clinicians join calls for UK gambling levy for treatment and prevention
NHS clinicians have called for the introduction of a levy on gambling operators to fund gambling harm prevention and treatment programmes.
UK.- Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, the director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic, and Dr Matt Gaskell, the clinical lead for the NHS Northern Gambling Service, have added their voices to calls for a levy on gambling operators in Britain.
They propose the creation of an independent health board to oversee how the gambling levy would be spent.
In a paper for the think tank Social Market Foundation, the health bosses say the creation of a gambling levy to fund problem gambling treatment and prevention could generate “tens of millions” of pounds for gambling addiction services. Their calls follow those of the industry-supported problem gambling charity GambleAware.
The NHS has decided to cut its ties with GambleAware due to questions about the charity’s independence due to the fact that it depends on voluntary donations from the gambling industry.
The decision raises questions for the future of services such as the NHS problem gambling service and problem gambling clinics in various areas which were co-funded by GambleAware.
Gaskell and Bowden-Jones wrote: “The current voluntary system has no integration of NHS services, no consistency in funding decisions, no independent evaluation of long-term impact or regulation via the Care Quality Commission, no coordinated oversight from research councils over research into harm, and serious questions have been asked about the independence of this voluntary system from the influence of the gambling industry.
“Furthermore, decisions about the funding of healthcare services are not overseen by experts at the Department of Health and Social Care, as would be expected, but rather officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.”
The British gambling secretary Chris Philp has said that the government will publish its gambling white paper “very soon” following its review of the 2005 Gambling Act. The paper may include proposals for an industry levy.
