Latest news with #HarrietCorbett
Metro
02-07-2025
- Health
- Metro
NHS opens first ketamine clinic for children as young as 12
The NHS has opened the UK's first-ever ketamine clinic for teenagers as more and more children turn to the drug. 12-year-olds are among the 'increasing numbers' of young people attending A&E due to the class B substance. Doctors at Alder Hay Children's Hospital in Liverpool launched the service last month with the hopes of treating ketamine abuse and dependency. Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows one in 20 (4.8%) of 20 to 24-year-olds in England and Wales admitted to taking the drug last year. While nearly seven per cent of today's 16-24 year olds have experimented with 'ket'. Also called 'K' or 'Special K', ketamine is often used as a party drug and is known for inducing out-of-body experiences, hallucinations and a trance-like state. Ketamine use has surged by 85% from 2023 to 2024, while deaths related to the drug are up a staggering 650% from 2015. It means one person dies a week in a ketamine linked case on average. Harriet Corbett, a consultant paediatric neurologist at Alder Hay Children's Hospital, who helped set up the service, said the clinic was set up to respond to the surge in young people suffering from 'Ketamine Bladder'. The condition, called ketamine-induced uropathy, affects a person's urinary system. Symptoms include debilitating pain from an inflamed and shrunken bladder and 'K cramps', which can lead to kidney failure. She told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast: 'Sadly, our youngest referral was for a patient who was 12, we're seeing a lot of 14 and 15-year-olds. 'There are an increasing number under the age of 16, which is why we've had to set up a clinic. 'No one else, as far as we know, is seeing quite as many children in that age group. 'We know it is available in some schools and out in the community as well. Parents can be really distressed and distraught.' She added: 'An increasing number of patients are coming into mostly the emergency department with symptoms from their ketamine use and those are increasingly from the bladder. 'They really struggle because their bladder can't hold enough urine and are often passing blood in their urine as well and having to get up at night, sometimes wetting the bed. 'Those are pretty distressing symptoms for the children. 'Ketamine gets concentrated in the urine and then gets absorbed through the bladder wall and causes it to become inflamed. 'That over time makes the bladder wall very stiff and can't stretch in the way it normally would do. 'Ketamine can cause permanent damage, so we want to see the children as early as we can to explain what it can do and what the long-term picture of using ketamine looks like.' One factor driving ketamine's popularity among young people is that it is a cheaper alternative to other party drugs like cocaine. The drug, also used as a horse tranquilliser, costs about £10 per gram, while cocaine will cost more like £60 per gram. Recent celebrity deaths have thrown the country's ketamine problem into the spotlight. More Trending RuPaul's Drag Race star The Vivienne died 'from the effects of ketamine use, causing a cardiac arrest' on January 5 this year. While One Direction star Liam Payne had a drug cocktail named pink cocaine, which typically includes ketamine, in his system when he fell off a hotel balcony in Argentina. Medical research has found that twice-weekly injections could reduce the impact of severe depression – but that doesn't change the fact that it can have serious health implications if taken long-term. Severe bladder damage, causing people to need the toilet every half an hour, damage to the short- and long-term memory, increased heart rate and blood pressure, and potentially even liver damage, could all come as a result of ketamine abuse. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: British 'drug mule' Bella Culley says she was 'tortured' into smuggling MORE: British man reported missing in Cambodia found in jail accused of drug smuggling MORE: The Vivienne inquest confirms star was 'found by neighbour' two days after death
BBC News
02-07-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Alder Hey opens clinic for children's ketamine abuse
A children's hospital has launched a clinic to treat young people who are taking the street drug ketamine. Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool is thought to be the first in the country to run a programme aimed specifically at minors. Senior consultants at the hospital told the BBC it was believed Merseyside had a bigger problem with the drug than other areas. In April, Liverpool council wrote to the government demanding the substance - a sedative that can have hallucinatory effects and also cause serious health problems - be reclassified as a Class A drug like heroin or cocaine. The clinic began running at the hospital in May, and a second clinic later this week has had to be expanded due to the number of referrals, Ms Corbett said."We've talked to other paediatrics across the country, and, to our knowledge, nobody is seeing anyone under the age of 16 yet, but yet is the important word," paediatric consultant Harriet Corbett she told BBC Radio Merseyside. 'Huge favour' Ms Corbett added: "I think there genuinely is a bigger problem here (Merseyside) at the moment than there is elsewhere," she said, adding that there was a particular problem in the more rural areas of Merseyside."We've had to expand Friday's clinic to put in some extra slots as we have had so many children referred in."She said if the hospital could "get young people to come through their period of use and see the other side and realise life can be better without it, then we're doing everybody a huge favour".In England, the number of under-18s entering drug treatment who described ketamine as one of their problem substances rose from 335 to 917 between 2020-21 and 2023-24, according to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System, Government figures also showed a rise in the number of children and young people aged under 17 reporting problems with ketamine, going up from 512 in 2021 to 2022 to 1,201 in 2023 to councillor Lynnie Hinnigan told city leaders in April that she had heard first-hand from a 20-year-old addict who had "admitted to a room of strangers how she had to wear adult pull-ups, didn't want to die, and was going to leave the session and reuse as she couldn't cope with the pain". What is ketamine? Ketamine is widely used in the NHS as an anaesthetic, sedative and pain reliever, and is also commonly used on is also thought of as a party drug due to its hallucinogenic substance usually comes as a crystalline powder or liquid and can cause serious health problems including irreversible damage to the bladder and coroner for Dorset, Richard Middleton, said ketamine cystitis was an "emerging epidemic" among young people after Joshua Leatham-Prosser was found dead at his home in Weymouth on 5 June 2024, having used the drug since Middleton said the impact on his bladder was "akin to acid attacks on the skin". Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
