King's College London

Recent NICE guidance on gambling-related harms recommends that health and social care professionals consider asking about gambling as part of routine assessments, particularly where there are concerns about safeguarding, financial difficulties, mental health or vulnerability.

Against this backdrop, our study evaluated the implementation of gambling harm enquiry across three English local authorities in Adult Social Care Single Point of Access (SPA), Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), Learning Disability (LD) and debt advice services.

The research, just published in Journal of Social Work, was led by Senior Research Fellow at the Unit, Caroline Norrie.

The study found strong support among practitioners for addressing gambling harms, with staff viewing this as a legitimate and important area of practice. However, implementation varied considerably by service setting. Enquiry was most successfully embedded within debt advice, MASH and LD services, where practitioners routinely discuss finances, safeguarding, wellbeing and vulnerability. In these settings, staff found gambling questions relevant and acceptable to service users.

However, brief, needs-focused telephone contacts, competing demands and concerns about the relevance of gambling to presenting issues made routine enquiry more difficult in the SPA settings. Across all settings, successful implementation depended on specialist training, management support, ongoing reinforcement and clear referral pathways. The findings suggest that while gambling harm enquiry is feasible within local authority services, careful consideration of service context is essential to ensure meaningful and sustainable implementation.

As part of the study, the following two questions for asking about gambling harms to individuals or ‘affected others’ were scientifically tested and found to be reliable and acceptable in practice. Choose one (or both) based on staff preference or service considerations.

• Is your own gambling or that of someone else causing you any worries?
• Do you feel you are affected by any gambling, either your own or someone else's?

Latest article (published 15 July 2026)

Norrie, C., Forward, C., Bramley, S., Riley, L., Shearer, J., Stewart, G., Fletcher, P., Manthorpe, J. and Wardle, H. (2026) "Social Workers and Gambling Harms? Evaluating an Initiative in Three English Local Authorities", Journal of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680173261461650

Project webpage

See the project webpage for all outputs from this study, which include:

• Training webinar for staff asking about gambling harms (30 minute YouTube presentation; download the slides)
• Staff guidance (including support organisations)
• Recommendations for local authorities wishing to embed a question about gambling harms within services