Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many children and young people NHS England treated for eating disorders in each of the last five years.

The number of finished admission episodes (FAEs) in which the primary diagnosis was an eating disorder are given below.

A FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period. These data do not record the age of the patient, so it is not possible to ascertain if an episode related to a child, a young person or an adult.

The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.

"eating disorders” are classified with ICD10 codes as follows:

F50.0 Anorexia nervosa

F50.1 Atypical anorexia nervosa

F50.2 Bulimia nervosa

F50.3 Atypical bulimia nervosa

F50.4 Overeating associated with other psychological disturbances

F50.5 Vomiting associated with other psychological disturbances

F50.8 Other eating disorders

F50.9 Eating disorder, unspecified