Gambling clinics are treating patients addicted to trading cryptocurrency, the head of the NHS has warned.
Digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, can be bought and sold online without the requirement for a bank or financial institution to verify transactions.
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard told the health service’s annual conference the gambling landscape had changed dramatically since the NHS was founded 75 years ago.
She said: “Gambling addiction is a cruel disease which has the power to destroy people’s lives.
“Earlier this year the NHS opened the 15th specialist centre for gambling addiction in England to ensure that people could receive much-needed support.
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“Betting shops were illegal when the NHS was founded in 1948 and the service is constantly adapting to real and growing social need – including the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies which I heard about when visiting one of our 15 gambling harm clinics earlier this year.”
More than 1.6 million people in England are thought to engage in at-risk or problem gambling.
The boom in trading of cryptocurrency over the last 15 years has created a new avenue for potential addiction.
A 2022 survey commissioned by HMRC found that one in 10 UK adults hold or have held cryptoassets, with cryptocurrencies the most common type.
But the ease with which investment value can rise and fall makes it a volatile practice.
Last year, the Treasury Committee’s inquiry into crypto-assets concluded that retail trading in unbacked crypto more closely resembled gambling than a financial service due to this price volatility and risk of losses.
Ms Pritchard said cryptocurrency trading saw people “investing their own money in something with no fixed value, with the NHS left to pick up the pieces”.
She said NHS “can help, will help” but questioned whether more should be done to tackle the problem at source and prevent people becoming addicted.
Ms Pritchard added: “As a society we need to ask – are we okay to just continue picking up the pieces while the methods employed to keep people hooked get ever more sophisticated?
“Ever more opportunities spring up for younger people to get addicted to gambling including – as I’ve heard from staff when I visited the National Problem Gambling clinic earlier this year – on unregulated cryptocurrency markets.
“Will we tackle problems at source, or do we accept the NHS becomes an expensive safety net?
“Gambling can have a debilitating impact on personal relationships, your finances and severely damage your mental wellbeing, so if you’re worried about your relationship with gambling, please come forward to our clinics by self-referral or speak to your GP practice.”
Dr Niall Campbell, a Priory consultant psychiatrist specialising in addiction treatment at Priory Hospital Roehampton, said his clinic had seen a “stead stream patients who have got into serious difficulties with cryptocurrency dealing” in recent years.
He added: “For some it becomes an addiction, in that it takes over their life. As with other addictions, there are huge consequences to their mental health, financial health and relationship health.
“It can be very similar to gambling addiction, as people constantly chase their losses. We would use a similar treatment model to other addictions, in that we recommend abstinence.
“As inpatients on our Addiction Treatment Programme, we would begin by identifying the consequences, as described above. We look at what’s behind the behaviour and work on commitment in the future.”