Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this very constructive debate. They all showed massive care and compassion, with a recognition that we have come a long way but need to go a lot further. I am grateful for their constructive contributions.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this debate in Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I thank her for her very frank exposition of eating disorders, and of the helplessness felt not only by those who are suffering, but by those around them. It is essential that we ensure that people have access to the right mental health support in the right place and at the right time, because time is of the essence. Improving those services is a key priority for this Government, as part of our wider agenda to improve mental health services.

As several hon. Members have said, eating disorders are serious: they have some of the highest mortality rates of any mental health disorder. We need to ensure, more than ever, that people get access to support as early as possible, because eating disorders quite often begin when people are young. Representations have been made today about why our targets are for children, rather than adults. Those targets recognise the fact that early intervention is best and that issues often surface when people are younger, but that does not in any way diminish the challenge of ensuring that adults also have access to services.

That brings me to a point that several hon. Members have made: the perception that eating disorders affect only young white women. They do affect adults. I have heard of a case of an elderly lady in a care home being diagnosed with an eating disorder that she had obviously been suffering from for decades. One of the tests that I will set myself is for that never to happen again, because we need to ensure that people get early diagnosis.

As the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) very frankly reminded us, eating disorders affect men and boys too. If there is a perception otherwise, it may partly be because men and boys are much less likely to seek help than women and girls. We need to make it clear that the issue can affect absolutely anyone, as the hon. Gentleman showed very courageously by sharing his own experience; I am very grateful for his comments.

It is important to continue to raise awareness. We need to reduce the stigma associated with eating disorders so that people are more likely to talk about them. Like all hon. Members, I pay tribute to the campaigners who do so much to raise awareness, particularly the charity Beat, which does absolutely excellent work. I also pay tribute to Hope Virgo for her campaign and look forward to meeting her very soon.

We cannot emphasise strongly enough that this is not about weight; it is about the mind. Some of the stories that were shared in this debate were quite horrific. If there is such lack of understanding among medical professionals—if the people we trust to look after us end up doing harm because they see eating disorders as a weight issue—we have a serious problem to tackle. Of course training has its part to play, but I should add that we expect a lot of our GPs. One of the real challenges is to continue to roll out multidisciplinary GP service teams to ensure that there is much greater expertise in each medical practice, rather than relying on one individual to be the expert on everything. Frankly, they are only human beings—they are not God.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the Minister for giving way; I know that her time is very limited. When services let people go too early, the danger of relapse is much higher. We could prevent relapses by not letting sufferers go too early, when they are half better but not fully better.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady makes a good point that I will address further if I have time. We need to look carefully at the care pathway and at the whole practice of referrals and the journey that people take, so that we can ensure that they are in a position to manage their disorder. The truth is that no one is ever cured of these things; it is a matter of managing their wellbeing to tackle them.

I thank the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) for her acknowledgment that we have come a long way. She is right that we need to ensure that we have proper specialist services to do this work, because of the risk of harm. She is also right to mention obesity, which we could do an awful more to address. I watch a lot of rubbish TV—we work long hours here, so that is my relaxation—and I am horrified by some of the channels, which basically run a succession of programmes about weight that are almost freak shows. That is not how we should be talking about the issue if we want to encourage people to access help. We need to tackle the stigma around obesity as much as the stigma around any other disorder.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and I have already discussed his concerns about his area. I know that there are challenges and we need to ensure that provision is sufficient. He spoke very frankly about the guilt and terror that people around those who suffer from eating disorders feel, because they genuinely do not know how to help their friend or loved one. Reducing stigma and raising awareness is partly about helping people to understand what they can do. Everybody wants to help, because nobody wants to see people suffer so much.

Social media has been mentioned a lot. I absolutely recognise that it can be a force as much for good as for bad, but I must say that we are seeing content that encourages harmful behaviour. It is about the whole psychology of people joining communities. When people use social media regularly, they can become isolated from the physical world and join an online world in which everyone is like them. It becomes normalising, and it can worsen their experience.

Equally, social media can be a community of self-help. I agree completely with the hon. Member for Islwyn that we have to be careful: of course we must challenge companies to be responsible, but it is not black and white, and we need to handle the issue sensitively. I am pleased to say that some companies are very responsive, but not all, so we will continue to challenge them. The hon. Gentleman raised an issue that particularly concerns me. It is one thing to regulate public platforms, but encrypted direct contact is having a growing impact. We need to look at Snapchat, WhatsApp and so on, because the fact is the Government are always three steps—probably more—behind technology.

The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow emphasised peer support. I could not agree more: peer support is important for mental health generally. If I could make one challenge to NHS commissioners, it would be to recognise that providing support to people who suffer mental ill health is not just about clinicians; it is about the voluntary sector and peer support workers. If we are to really step up to that challenge, I hope to see much more imagination in how services are commissioned.

I have so much more to say, but I am running out of time. With hon. Members’ indulgence, I will write to them—not least the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly)—to outline our response to the points that they raised. We have a lot of figures and have shown that we are meeting targets, but I think all hon. Members would be more confident if there were more granularity—not least because of the cases raised today in which people have not received the treatment that they deserve.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).