Medical schools need more training on problem gambling, experts say

Experts have called for training on gambling in medical schools amid a surge of health issues resulting from gambling addiction.

Earlier this year, a two-week inquest into the death of 24-year-old Jack Ritchie confirmed the link between gambling addiction and suicide.

Jack’s gambling disorder began at the age of 17, when he and school friends would spend dinner money at betting shops. The English teacher’s fight against gambling lasted seven years, before he took his own life in 2017.

The coroner concluded that treatments, warnings and information about gambling harms were “woefully inadequate” and stated that in the UK, “GPs currently have insufficient training and knowledge to deal effectively with gambling problems . . . this was of particular concern given many gamblers affected are likely to contact a GP as their first attempt to seek help.”

Johnathan Marron, the Director General of the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities at DHSC accepted “that the UK is in the extraordinary position that frontline NHS staff, including GPs, have had little or no training to be able to recognise, diagnose or treat gambling disorder.”

Writing in the British Medical Journal this week, Jenny Blythe, academic and researcher, and May van Schalkwyk, a specialty public health registrar, argued that “medical school teaching could adopt a broader conceptualisation of gambling harms than the ‘problem gambler’ framing”.

“Students should be empowered with the knowledge and skills to direct their patients to high quality services that can support the needs of their patient and the people close to them”, the experts said.

Suggestions of what might be included in an educational programme include:

• Taking a record of patients who suggest gambling as a potential contributor to their physical or mental health
• Paediatrics teaching which considers the impact of a child growing up in a family or community where gambling harms were experienced by others.
• Ethics teaching that recognises gambling harms disproportionately impact vulnerable groups in society.
• Asking screening questions about the patient’s direct or indirect interaction with gambling when recording patient’s medical histories.
• Empowering student pastoral services to support students should they themselves reveal personal gambling problems or harm they are experiencing.

In April 2022, NHS England announced that it was ending its funding arrangement with GamblingAware, after concern was raised about patients using “services paid for directly by the industry”.