Eating Disorders: Mental Health Services
(asked on 22nd October 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many children and young people and adults were referred to specialist secondary mental health services with a primary reason of referral of eating disorders in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22 to date; and what proportion of those referrals were made to an eating disorder service.
Information is not held on the number of children and young people and adults referred to specialist secondary mental health services with a primary reason of referral of eating disorders. However, the number of referrals of children and young people, and adults referred to specialist secondary mental health services with a primary reason of referral for eating disorders is shown in the table below.
Not all referrals of children and young people, and adults to specialist secondary mental health services with a primary reason of referral for eating disorders are recorded as being made to eating disorder services. Some of these referrals are recorded as being made to other service team types, such as community mental health teams, psychiatric liaison services and single point of access services.
| Number of referrals of children and young people, and adults to specialist secondary mental health services with a primary reason of referral for eating disorders1 | Referrals with a primary reason of referral for eating disorders referred to eating disorder services2,3 | Proportion of referrals with a primary reason of referral for eating disorders referred to eating disorder services (%) |
Children and young people (aged 0 to 18) |
| ||
2019/20 | 14,455 | 9,514 | 66 |
2020/21 | 22,449 | 15,624 | 70 |
2021/22 (to July 2021) | 10,880 | 7,726 | 71 |
Adults (over 18) |
| ||
2019/20 | 20,490 | 15,576 | 76 |
2020/21 | 24,934 | 19,488 | 78 |
2021/22 (to July 2021) | 11,621 | 9,225 | 79 |
Source: Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS), NHS Digital
1 Some people may have been referred more than once during a particular time period
2 Includes eating disorders/dietetics services, community eating disorder services for children and young people and community eating disorder services
3 Some referrals may have been referred to multiple service team types