Eating Disorders: Prevention of Deaths

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is a honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing this important debate, but also for very bravely and emotively discussing his personal experience.

Those of us in this Chamber who have had relatives suffering from these disorders know that it can be so frustrating when someone does not appear to want to help themselves. It causes a huge amount of stress for the family and for the carers who are looking after them. We know that eating disorders kill more people than any other mental health condition. Those who do recover have been robbed of years of life: they have missed their adolescence and have had their school and social life affected. That can have ongoing effects for the rest of their life.

I am reminded of several people I spoke to while knocking on doors in Winchester. Securing mental health care for children seems to be one of the top issues with which people are struggling. In particular, I remember two different mothers saying that they had been told that their daughters, who were suffering from eating disorders, had to reach a lower BMI before they qualified for treatment. We know that that means having to be sicker for longer, so not only is a successful outcome less likely, but it will require longer and more intensive treatment and will be more expensive for the NHS. As the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) highlighted, with the benefit of his expertise, it is more cost-effective to have early intervention than to treat people once they have been sick for a long period.

The Minister and the Opposition spokesperson both served with me on the Public Bill Committee on the Mental Health Bill. It was a conciliatory piece of legislation with cross-party support; there was genuine intention and passion on all sides to improve mental health in the UK. The disjointed provision of mental health care, especially for eating disorders, was one reason why I tabled an amendment to review how services for eating disorders are delivered. I will never forget a consultant psychiatrist coming to my surgery. He said that he was trying to get mental health care for his own child; it was not specifically about eating disorders, but he was struggling to navigate the system. He said, “If I, as a consultant psychiatrist, am struggling to navigate the system to get healthcare for my own child, what hope does anyone else have?” It is a very confusing situation.

There are plenty of other elements of this topic that are a real cause of concern. I will not repeat what everyone else has said, but I am really concerned that eating disorders are increasing, with hospital numbers doubling in a decade, and yet 24 of the nation’s 42 NHS integrated care boards are due to reduce their spending on under-18s in 2024-25, once inflation is taken into account. It is a really difficult situation: there will be increased pressure and less real-time resource to deliver.

We must all remember that although they are very serious, eating disorders are treatable. No one should be condemned to suffer for years on end because they cannot access treatment. We must all be committed to tackling damaging stigma. We must take an evidence-based approach to preventing eating disorders, which are hugely multifactorial. The factors are often non-clinical; social media has been mentioned already.

Eating disorders are the mental health crisis hiding in plain sight. They carry the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness, yet services are being cut, waiting time standards have been abandoned and young people are being left to deteriorate before help arrives. Early intervention saves lives, and we must be bold and move heaven and earth to deliver it. We must reinstate waiting time targets, protect funding and build a properly resourced national strategy so that no child or family is left trying to fight this illness alone.