Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the NHS in implementing early intervention measures for people who have eating disorders.

The Government recognises that early intervention is absolutely vital and is committed to ensuring everyone with an eating disorder has access to timely treatment.

For children and young people, the Government set up the first waiting times to improve access to eating disorders services for children and young people - so that by 2020/21 95% of children with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases. Latest figures indicate that the National Health Service is on track to meet that standard with almost 76.9% of all patients starting urgent treatment within one week and 83.1% of patients starting routine treatment within four weeks (third quarter of 2017-2018). The data is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cyped-waiting-times/

The Government announced in 2014 that it would invest £150 million to expand eating disorder community-based care and as a result 70 dedicated new or extended community services are now either open or in development. This means at least 3,350 children and young people a year will receive swift, effective eating disorder treatment in the community.

For adults, a care pathway together with detailed implementation guidance for providers is under development by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health in partnership with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The pathway is being fully informed by the available evidence and the views of experts and will increase healthcare professionals’ awareness of the early signs and symptoms of eating disorders so that they are able to refer without delay and intervene early.