CQC’s assessment of gambling treatment services: End of programme report

Following an initial scoping exercise in 2023, we worked with the Gambling Commission, GambleAware and an expert advisory group (EAG) (which included people with lived experience, frontline staff, service managers, clinicians, commissioners and partner organisations) to develop a bespoke assessment framework.

The bespoke framework was based on the approach we use for services we regulate and adapted to reflect gambling harms. We tested this bespoke framework through pilot assessments that were carried out between April 2024 and September 2024. Using feedback from the pilots, we worked with the EAG and representatives from the National Gambling Support Network (NGSN) to create the final assessment framework and approach for this programme, which is available on our website.

People’s lived experience is central to our assessment approach. As well as involving people with lived experience in developing our bespoke assessment framework, gathering feedback from people with lived experience during assessments was an integral part of the process.

Assessment activity

Between May 2025 and March 2026 a small team of experienced inspectors assessed the 14 services that are part of the National Gambling Support Network (NGSN), and which provide treatment and support for people experiencing gambling harms across England, Scotland and Wales.

To ensure assessment activity gathered the evidence required, we took a flexible approach with a mixture of on-site and remote assessments depending on the needs and types of services provided.

The services inspected included:

• EPIC Restart foundation
• ARA Recovery For All
• NECA
• Gordon Moody
• Beacon Counselling Trust
• Primary Care Gambling Service
• Aquarius
• GamCare
• GamCare Helpline
• Adferiad
• RCA Trust (Scotland)
• Betknowmore UK
• Breakeven
• Reframe Coaching.

Reports from our assessments of these services are published on the GambleAware website.

As part of the preparation for the programme, the assessment team completed a Royal Society of Public Health Level 2 Award in Tackling Gambling Related Harms to enhance their professional understanding of gambling harms as a public health issue, including the broader social, emotional and economic impacts.

Evidence used in this report

The findings presented in this report are based on the following evidence sources:

• Reports from our assessments of services – thematic analysis of the first 7 of the 14 published reports from our assessments of services.
• People’s experience surveys – on our assessments between May 2025 and February 2026 we asked people who use services to complete a survey about their experiences. We received 398 responses and analysed the free text responses for 360 of these.
• Focus groups with staff involved in the assessments – in January 2026 we held a focus group with an inspector and operations manager involved in the assessments to help us explore and understand the key themes further.
• National metrics from the National Gambling Support Network (NGSN) – all gambling services submit data on a set of performance indicators to the NGSN on a quarterly basis. For this report, we analysed these indicators between April to June 2025/26 and July to September 2025/26.