Health: Eating Disorders

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Lord, as ever, is quite right to delve into the detail of the 2017 survey into the mental health of children and young people in England. It found that eating disorders were identified in 0.4% of five to 19 year-olds—the spread was 0.7% of girls and 0.1% of boys—but it rose to 1.6% of girls aged seven to 19. Obviously, we want to understand what this rise in admissions means. There could be a number of reasons, which we hope are linked to earlier and better diagnosis, but of course we need to understand it better. We have a much better understanding of the data through the NHS mental health dashboard, which tracks down to CCG level what is happening with it, but we need to make sure that this work is properly funded and properly tracked in order to lead to better and more effective policies and provision of commissioned services.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

Does my noble friend recognise that sometimes the point at which young people with severe eating disorders are able to meet the criteria for admission to an in-patient bed is so severe that some of the potential benefits from an earlier admission are lost? I ask my noble friend to return to the number of in-patient beds. We have a deficiency. What is the Government’s estimate of the extent of that deficiency, and what steps are being taken to commission additional in-patient beds?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

We are increasing the number of commissioned in-patient beds up and down the country, but we are doing it in a way that recognises that it is better to have earlier diagnosis—prevention of the need to admit—and ensures that we do not wait until patients are at the stage where they need admission, which is the primary aim. My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to make sure that we have the right balance between those two. At the moment, we are doing a thorough assessment, and I will be happy to write to him on that issue.