Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report, Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients, published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in December 2018, what progress (a) his Department and (b) NHS England have made on reviewing the existing (i) quality and (ii) availability of adult eating disorder services to achieve parity with child and adolescent services.

The Government takes seriously the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (PSHO) report: “Ignoring the alarms: how NHS eating disorder services are failing patients”. NHS England and NHS Improvement are committed to meet the PSHO’s recommendations.

Commencing in March 2018, the National Clinical Director for Mental Health, Professor Tim Kendall was asked by the NHS England Board to establish a working group with other arm’s length bodies named in the PHSO report to help oversee and co-ordinate actions being taken to implement the recommendations.

The national review of adult eating disorder services that NHS England commissioned in 2017 is now complete. Data collected on activity, investment and workforce is being reviewed with stakeholders to inform NHS England’s understanding of current provision and existing levels of parity with eating disorder services for children and young people. The data will inform modelling to understand the finance and workforce gaps to achieving greater levels of parity.

NHS England will work with the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Quality Improvement and Accreditation Networks, specifically the Quality Eating Disorder Network, to help embed recommendations in service standards used to review the quality of care delivered in eating disorder services.

NHS Improvement has completed an engagement programme to inform a review of the Serious Incident Framework for the National Health Service. Further information about the engagement programme is available on NHS Improvement’s website at the following link:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/future-of-patient-safety-investigation/

NHS England is working closely with NHS Improvement to analyse responses from the engagement programme and will give particular consideration to how the different parts of the system can be brought together to improve the way incidents that are complex and/or involve multiple providers are investigated.