Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations of the report Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients, published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in December 2017, what progress Health Education England has made on tackling the gaps in the provision of (a) education, (b) training and (c) numbers of eating disorder specialists in the NHS.

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

In response to the PHSO report, NHS England have convened a working group with NHS Improvement, Health Education England (HEE), the Department and other partners to address the recommendations and take them into account in planning for improvements to eating disorder services.

HEE is reviewing its current education and training offer and will work with subject matter experts to scope existing evidence-based practice to inform any new education and training resources. HEE is also considering how the capacity of the existing workforce may be used more innovatively and is exploring workforce planning interventions that can increase specialism in the field of eating disorders.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has run a consultation on the quality standard on eating disorders, which included two statements aimed at improving co-ordination of care. The quality standard is currently in its final stages of internal review and is expected to be published in September 2018.