6 hours ago
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Children are using incontinence pads and urinating in buckets next to their bed at night due to bladder problems caused by ketamine addiction, according to the first specialist NHS clinic dealing with the issue.
Medics at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool have opened the first ketamine clinic for young people in the UK in response to a surge in urology problems linked to addiction of the drug.
“Some of our patients start wetting the bed or find going to the bathroom at night is actually too hard, so they’ll either choose incontinence products or a bucket by the bed,” said Harriet Corbett, a consultant paediatric urologist at the clinic.
“I hate to say it, but a lot of them get to the point where they’re not fussed about where they go, because the need to go overrides their desire to find somewhere private. And I suspect more of them are incontinent than are willing to tell us.”
Corbett said most of their patients were 14 to 15, with many reporting they had been using ketamine for one or two years, suggesting some are taking up the drug at 12.
Excessive use of the drug can cause problems as ketamine and its breakdown products sit in the bladder for a long time, where they can damage the lining and muscle tissue.
This causes inflammation and the bladder to decrease in size, with the main symptom being an urgent need to urinate frequently. In extreme cases it can lead to the bladder needing to be removed or to kidney problems.
“We need to shout loudly about this because if we can encourage them to stop using, that will potentially save themselves a miserable life of medical interventions,” said Corbett. “There is a point at which you can’t recover.”
There is still little research on exactly how many young people are using ketamine in the UK.
A 2023 NHS England survey of more than 13,000 students in 185 schools found that 0.9% of 15‑year‑olds had used ketamine, up from 0.4% in 2013, and 11% had been offered the drug. But medical professionals fear numbers could be higher than the data shows.
Prof Rachel Isba, a consultant in paediatric public health medicine who runs the clinic alongside Corbett, said: “There are probably many other children and young people out there who have bladder symptoms, or non-specific tummy pain, which may be due to their ketamine use but you need somebody to make the connection.
“We need to be specifically asking about ketamine use, but the vast majority of GPs and paediatricians in the UK will never have seen a child who’s used ketamine.”
The pair set up the clinic after what started as a “slow trickle” of cases in 2023, a “handful” in 2024 and then an escalating number in 2025.
Corbett said: “The numbers were going up and I was beginning to think, wow, this could be a problem. What are we going to do? It’s on everyone’s radar now because it’s snowballed; it’s gone a bit crazy.”
The clinic combines Corbett’s expertise in dealing with bladder problems in children with Isba’s knowledge of tackling addiction and referring young people to rehabilitation services.
The reasons behind the surge in ketamine use are also unclear. Isba said young people might take the drug socially but become addicted and start doing it at home in their bedroom. Their patients may have experienced childhood trauma, and many also have some form of neurodivergence, particularly ADHD.
“What we hear from the kids is: ket is great, it’s a break from your busy brain or just a bit of a rest,” said Isba. “They want to belong. So they feel if they don’t participate, they won’t be able to. We’ve heard stories of young people who’ve changed the entire way they go about their day in order to avoid being exposed to other people’s ketamine use.”
Another emerging issue is that many children are starting to use ketamine to ease the pain caused by their bladder problems. Corbett said: “When they get bad bladder pain, for some of the only pain relief they find that is helpful is ketamine. So they get into a very nasty downward spiral.”
