Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the (a) completeness and (b) quality of data collected on waiting times to access adult community eating disorder services.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Adult eating disorders are covered by the overall adult waiting time metrics developed through the Clinically Led Review of Standards. Work to implement adult community mental health time-based metrics therefore also applies to adult community eating disorder services.

To improve completeness and quality of data submitted to the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS), the Adult Mental Health team has developed SNOMED CT clinical coding guidance and national reference sets to support accurate recording of assessments, interventions, medications, and waiting time clock stops. Online training modules have been published to support providers with MHSDS submissions, with further pathway-specific modules and clinical descriptor guidance in development, alongside planned educational sessions for 2026/27.

The national Data Collections Service provides proactive one-to-one data quality support to providers, and an experimental access and waiting times dashboard is available on NHS Futures. In addition, NHS England publishes data quality information on all MHSDS submissions and contacts providers monthly to address identified issues.

Together, these measures are intended to strengthen the completeness and accuracy of waiting time data for adult community eating disorder services.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to commission national training to support the workforce delivering Children and Young People’s Eating Disorder Services.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England already has comprehensive eating disorder training in place for staff across mental and physical health services, including those delivering Children and Young People’s Eating Disorder Services (CYP ED). This covers both awareness-raising and specialist up-skilling, with e-learning and simulation training available to doctors, general practitioners and primary care clinicians, nurses across all four branches, acute hospital staff, dietitians, and pharmacy teams.

Following the 2017 Ombudsman report Ignoring the Alarms, NHS England worked with Beat and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to strengthen training on the safe medical management of eating disorders, which remains available. More recently, NHS England has commissioned further specialist training to support the CYP ED workforce, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Eating Disorders Credential, family-based therapies, cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders, and training on Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.

Together, this national programme of training ensures that the workforce is better equipped to identify risk early and provide safe, effective, evidence-based care for children and young people wherever they present.

Found: 49 (98.0%) Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne) (added 21 Oct 2024) 36 of 49 (73.5%) Andrew Cooper

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Florence Eshalomi (Chair); Lewis Cocking; Andrew Cooper; Chris Curtis