Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has he made of the adequacy of availability of eating disorder services for children.

For children and young people, we have set up the first standard to improve access to eating disorder services for children and young people. This states that 95% of children with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases, and four weeks for routine cases. Prior to the pandemic, significant progress had been made towards achieving the 95% access target.

Since the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in demand and more children and young people with an eating disorder are accessing support than ever before. Almost 10,000 started treatment between April and December 2021, an increase of a quarter compared to the same period the previous year and up by almost two thirds since before the pandemic.

This increase in demand has affected performance against the waiting timing standard, and the latest figures show that this is not currently being met. Information about delivery against these waiting time standards is available through the quarterly updated NHS Mental Health Dashboard, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-mental-health-dashboard.

We remain committed to delivering this waiting time standard. NHS England continues to work with system leaders and regions and to ask that areas prioritise service delivery and investment to meet the needs of these vulnerable young people.