Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to improve his Department's support for people with eating disorders.

NHS England introduced a new waiting time standard for treatment of eating disorders for children from April 2017. The ambition is that by 2020, 95% of those referred will start treatment within one week if the case is urgent and four weeks if the case is non-urgent.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its updated clinical guideline for the recognition and treatment of eating disorders for people of all ages in May 2017. It is available at:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng69

A pathway for adults with eating disorders, together with detailed implementation guidance for providers, will be developed by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health in partnership with NICE over 2017/18. The pathway will be fully informed by the available evidence and the views of experts.