Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Dorries]

Absolutely. On training for GPs, I take the hon. Lady’s point exactly. The NICE guidelines are incredibly clear, in terms of the Hope Virgo campaign and taking BMI, weight and other things into consideration. The NICE guidelines are clear, and it is up to the clinical commissioning groups to ensure that GPs and others do not take weight as a consideration. Tim Kendall is all over this and is working on it. We want GPs and others to abide by what are already very strict NICE guidelines. We have the guidelines; we just need the medical profession to implement them, but I had an idea when the hon. Lady asked her question. We are talking about training for GPs with the General Medical Council and we will continue to hold conversations about that, and I am sure that NHS England is doing exactly the same thing, but there are quicker ways to get information through to GPs.

When I was a nurse and I was training, it was the Nursing Times that informed us, on a weekly basis, of what was new in treatments and operative procedures. For GPs, it is Pulse and other magazines that they receive. I think that there might be a quicker way into GPs’ surgeries to alert them to the fact that the NICE guidelines are not being applied by GPs or by clinical commissioning groups. I think that there may be more inventive ways around that. Yes, training GPs absolutely is important; it is important to include this issue in the GP training programme, but in terms of getting a message through to GPs now, I think that we need to look at a more innovative way of doing that.

On money being diverted and ring-fenced, I think that the hon. Lady knows that the money from the £2.3 billion that goes to the CCGs is ring-fenced for mental health services only. They are not allowed to siphon it off and use it for anything else. We have our own queries as to whether some are doing that, and I know that NHS England, because I raised this with it the last time I met it, is doing an evaluation of clinical commissioning groups and having a look and checking that that money, which is ring-fenced, is spent only on—

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask whether the Minister intends to give the proposer of the motion his usual two minutes to wind up the debate?

[Ms Dorries]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman, if he wants to talk to me at any time, knows that he can catch me anywhere. I will now give way to him.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

I thank the Minister and call Sir George Howarth.