Addicts being charged huge sums for private rehabilitation services they do not need, expert warns

Addicts are being charged huge sums for private rehabilitation services they do not need, one of the UK’s leading experts in the field has claimed.

The revelation follows a major scandal in 2018 when it was revealed that private businesses – known as patient brokers – were posing online as free addiction advice helplines and referring callers to expensive private rehab clinics.

At the time, addiction experts said that many of these patients did not have issues severe enough to need such intensive treatment, which often costs as much as £20,000. 

Following the reports, the search engine Google pledged to ban online adverts posted by the brokers.

However, Dr Samantha Duggan, a behavioural psychologist who sits on a parliamentary committee on addiction treatment, says the brokers are still operating, with dozens of adverts on Google. 

‘This should have been addressed years ago,’ says Dr Duggan. ‘If the Government can regulate estate agents, they can do the same for rehab brokers.’

Nearly 300,000 people in the UK receive drug or alcohol addiction treatment on the NHS, while about 250,000 people have a gambling problem – but studies suggest that there are many more with addiction issues that are going untreated.

Experts say that addicts who go online looking for support wrongly believe that the expensive private addiction clinics promoted by these brokers are their best hope of treatment.

Nearly 300,000 people in the UK receive drug or alcohol addiction treatment on the NHS, while about 250,000 people have a gambling problem – but studies suggest that there are many more with addiction issues that are going untreated (file pic)

‘These are desperate people, and they can be manipulated and abused as a result of these unethical practices,’ says Dr Duggan.

Google said it was reviewing the broker profiles highlighted by this newspaper and removing those that violated its policies. 

A spokesman added that its ‘guidelines require businesses to reflect their business correctly’.