Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS England is taking to (a) raise public awareness of the symptoms of eating disorders and (b) encourage people that may have an eating disorder to seek help from a GP.

This Government recognises the importance of raising awareness and reducing stigma so that more people feel able to talk about their mental health, including eating disorders, and seek treatment. In January 2017, the Prime Minister committed to having mental health first aid training available to secondary schools, aiming to have trained at least one teacher in every secondary school by 2020 and to all primary schools by 2022.

This Government has also provided grant funding to the Time to Change national mental health anti-stigma campaign since 2012. Time to Change works with people with experience of mental health problems, including eating disorders, to challenge stigma and to improve social attitudes towards mental health. Time to Change’s website provides information and guidance about eating disorders and provides signposts and links to organisations that can help. This information is available at the following link:

https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/about-mental-health/types-problems/eating-disorders

The Government has also committed to equip one million people to be better informed to look after their own mental health, so Public Health England is currently leading the development of a £15 million national mental health campaign called ‘Every Mind Matters’.