Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to recognise gambling disorder and addiction as a distinct mental health condition; and if he will make a statement.

The Government has not made any estimates of the number of people at risk of developing a gambling addiction. The most recent figures from the Health Survey for England published in April 2018, estimated that 3.6% of people in England were at low or moderate risk of developing problems with their gambling.

The Gambling Commission support a survey of young people each year, which found in 2017 that 0.9% of 11-16 year olds are defined as problem gamblers and 1.3% are ‘at risk’ gamblers. The survey is available at the following link:

live-gamblecom.cloud.contensis.com/PDF/survey-data/Young-People-and-Gambling-2017-Report.pdf

It is not the role of the Department to recognise gambling disorder and addiction as a distinct mental health condition. The International Classification of Disease (ICD) is a system created by the World Health Organization (WHO) for documenting diagnoses, diseases, signs and symptoms and social circumstances. The ICD was revised in 2018 (ICD-11) and now recognises gambling disorder as a mental health condition due to addictive behaviours. The revised document will be formally published in 2019 and as a WHO member, the Government will adopt this updated classification standard for collecting and reporting information related to health conditions by 2022.

Further information is available on the WHO website at the following link:

icd.who.int/