Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 16 of the report of the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman, Ignoring the alarms: how NHS eating disorder services are failing patients, HC 634, published on 6 December 2017, what steps he plans to take to tackle the significant geographical variation that report identifies in access to good quality specialist adult eating disorders services.

The Government takes seriously the report of the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman ‘Ignoring the alarms: how NHS eating disorder services are failing patients’.

Following on from the publication of the ombudsman’s report the Department will now work with our partner organisations and arm’s length bodies, including NHS England, to consider how the recommendations can be taken into account as part of the planned improvements to mental health and eating disorder services.

NHS England is currently developing a pathway for adults with eating disorders and working with healthcare professionals so they better understand eating disorders – the case investigated by the ombudsman’s report will be considered as part of this.

With regard to the specific recommendation for the development of benchmarking guidance for adult eating disorder services and measuring success against this, NHS England is considering the recommendations within the report and will respond with an outline of proposed set of actions around reviewing provision of adult eating disorder services and the question of parity of adult services with children and young people’s services. NHS England’s response will include their plans to review existing levels of geographical variation and the scope to address these as part of future improvements to adult eating disorder services.