Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of treatment for eating disorders for (1) people under 18, and (2) people over 18, in each of the health boards in England.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England has recently updated guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, strengthening early identification, and ensuring care is joined up across schools, primary care, and specialist services, with faster access to treatment where an eating disorder is suspected.

NHS England expects to publish the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework shortly. The mental health personalised care framework sets out the approach and related principles and actions for delivering personalised care for adults and older people with severe mental health problems.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England has established 15 Adult Eating Disorder Provider Collaboratives across England to oversee specialised adult eating disorder services. In addition to delivering inpatient care, these collaboratives are supporting the development of intensive community and day treatment models, helping more people receive care closer to home where clinically appropriate, reducing reliance on inpatient admission and geographical variation, while implementing improved processes supporting earlier discharge from hospital.

NHS England has also published guidance for commissioners and providers on adult eating disorders across community, inpatient, and intensive day-patient care, to support local systems in developing coherent pathways across different levels of treatment intensity.

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing local need and commissioning appropriate community and outpatient provision for their populations, while specialised provision supports those adults whose needs require a higher level of intensity, medical monitoring, or specialist intervention.