Addicts are being forced to pay huge sums for private rehabilitation services they don’t need, an expert has warned

Addicts are being made to pay huge sums for private rehabilitation services they don’t need, claims one of Britain’s leading experts on the subject.

The revelation follows a major scandal in 2018 when it emerged that private companies – known as patient brokers – posed online as free addiction advice hotlines and referred callers to expensive private drug rehab clinics.

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

Following the reports, the search engine Google vowed to ban online advertisements from the brokers.

Dr. However, Samantha Duggan, a behavioral psychologist who sits on a parliamentary committee on addiction care, says the brokers are still active, with dozens of ads on Google.

“This should have been addressed years ago,” says Dr. Duggan. “If the government can regulate real estate agents, it can do the same for rehabilitation real estate agents.”

Almost 300,000 people in Britain receive treatment for drug or alcohol addiction on the NHS, while around 250,000 people have a gambling problem – but studies suggest there are many more people with addiction problems that go untreated.

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

“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 spokesperson added that the ‘guidelines require companies to accurately reflect their activities’.