Eating Disorder Awareness

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

I do not know how to follow that speech. I just want to thank the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon). I can understand how tough it was. I also put on record that we all agree that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) is a star, who has been working on this throughout, and so are Hope Virgo and Dr Agnes Ayton and all the others behind the scenes.

Just to give some hope to hon. Members, we now have a Minister in place with a record of understanding these issues, and with some of the sharpest elbows in Government to get the resources, so I am confident that there will be a move forward. He is aware of the strategy. It is straightforward. There must be input into training not only for health workers, but for teaching staff and education psychologists. We had school nurses come forward with a package that was incredibly effective in raising awareness on the issues, including online safety.

We need community level support services, specialist units and family support. One of the issues raised in the briefings we have circulated from the all-party parliamentary group is the lack of family support. As has been exemplified, when a family member becomes a sufferer of these conditions, the family feel completely isolated and lack support in some of the most challenging situations any family can face. During the discussions around this strategy, there is a need to go into the detail of family support, including the professional advice and community support they can access, to ensure that they do not become isolated.

There is also the issue of financial support. I ask the Minister to look at the consultation on disability benefits and support for people with long-term sickness conditions that is taking place now. Again, it is important that we do everything we possibly can to ensure that sufferers do not lose their benefits as a result of this review. The Government are undertaking consultations, but not on the criteria for the personal independence payment, the points-awarded system. I would be grateful if the Minister could look at that and liaise with Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions, so that sufferers do not lose the benefits support that they have. Also, some families who are receiving carer’s allowance as a result of the award of PIP to an eating disorder sufferer may be at risk of losing that benefit, but they should not be. We are not even sure what the numbers are, so we would all be extremely grateful to the Minister if he could pay attention to that issue.

Finally, the principle of the all-party group’s work has been to seek a process in Government for co-production of the strategy, in a timetabled way and with funding allocated over the life of this Government. That way, by the time we get to the next election, we can be confident that the strategy has been implemented based on the expertise of those who really know what needs to be done—the sufferers themselves and the families who support them. That process of co-production is as important even as the scale of funding that we need to achieve. Otherwise we will be wasting resources, rather than investing them effectively on the basis of what will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

National funding has increased over the years, as the hon. Lady will know. The question is whether that funding channels through to ICBs. The Government’s view is that ICBs are best placed to make decisions as close as possible to the communities that they serve and to target and, if necessary, reallocate funding accordingly. As a Government, we are constantly trying to get the balance right between setting frameworks and targets and ensuring that those are being met, while also ensuring that ICBs are not being micromanaged from the centre. We do not think it is right that people sitting in Whitehall or Westminster micromanage what is going on at a local level. We are absolutely clear that every ICB must meet its targets, while also being clear that it is up to the ICB to take decisions as close as possible to the communities that they serve.

Sadly, we have seen the prevalence of eating disorders in children and young people sharply increase since 2017. In 2023, NHS England published follow-up results to its survey on the mental health of children and young people. The report found that the prevalence of eating disorders in 17 to 19-year-olds rose from 0.8% in 2017 to 12.5% in 2023. Unfortunately, we are also seeing the prevalence of eating disorders rising among adults. The 2019 health survey for England showed that 16% of adults over 16 screened positive for a possible eating disorder. The figures do not mean that the individual had a confirmed eating disorder, but they present a worrying situation that we must address by continuing to promote both awareness and early intervention.

The surge in demand has inevitably made meeting our waiting time targets more challenging. However, our services and clinicians, backed by new funding, are supporting more people than ever before. These services are changing and saving lives. As hon. Members will know, we have kept in place the access and waiting time standard for children and young people who are referred with eating disorder issues. This sets a 95% target for children with urgent cases to begin treatment within one week, and for children with routine cases to start treatment within four weeks.

Figures released last month show that although the number of referrals and demand for services has begun to stabilise during the past year, the number of children entering treatment reached a record high of 2,954 last quarter. This shows that the extra funding is enabling services to begin to meet the extra pressures caused by the pandemic. Similarly, the number of children entering treatment within the target time has reached a record high. Of the 2,954 children entering treatment last quarter, 2,414 were able to access that treatment within the one-week urgent target or the four-week routine target—a rate 81.7%. That is the highest figure recorded since NHS England began collecting that data in 2021.

However, we recognise that there is still far more to be done to ensure that patients with eating disorders can access treatment at the right time. The hon. Member for Bath rightly focused the debate on the importance of awareness. Raising awareness of eating disorders is the first step towards early intervention to prevent the devastating impacts that eating disorders can have on people’s lives. To support this, NHS England is currently refreshing guidance on children and young people’s eating disorders.

The refreshed guidance will highlight the importance of awareness and early recognition of eating disorders in schools, colleges, primary care and broader children and young people’s mental health services. A number of colleagues asked when that guidance will be published; my officials are working hard with specialists on that, and it will be published later this year.

The existing mental health support teams, supplemented by the specialist mental health professionals that we will be providing access to in every school in England, will support school staff to raise awareness and identify children and young people showing potential early signs of an eating disorder. Through these interventions, children and young people can be given early support and help to address problems before they escalate.

Community-based early support hubs for children and young people aged 11 to 25 also play a key role in providing early support for young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Early support hubs provide open-access drop-in mental health services that assist children and young people with a range of issues, such as eating disorders, at an early stage without the need for a referral or doctor’s appointment.

I am pleased to say that this year, thousands more young people will receive support with their mental health, thanks to £7 million of new funding for 24 existing community-based early support hubs to expand their current offer. That funding will deliver 10,000 more interventions such as group sessions, counselling therapies and specialist support over the next 12 months. Looking forward, we are also committed to rolling out open-access young futures hubs in communities. This national network is expected to bring local services together and deliver support for young people facing mental health challenges, including support for those with eating disorders.

We should also be concerned about the widespread availability of harmful online material that promotes eating disorders, suicide and self-harm, which can easily be accessed by people who may be vulnerable. We have been clear that the Government’s priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act, so that those who use social media, especially children, can benefit from its wide-reaching protections as soon as possible. Our focus is on keeping young people safe while they benefit from the latest technology. By the summer, robust new protections for children will be enforced through the Act to protect them from harmful content and ensure that they have an age-appropriate experience online.

It is right to focus on awareness and early intervention, but we know that some people simply need access to high-quality treatment in order to get better. A key priority of this Government is therefore to expand community-based services to treat eating disorders, so that people can be treated earlier and closer to home. NHS England is working to increase the capacity of community-based eating disorder services. By improving care in the community, the NHS can improve outcomes and recovery, reduce rates of relapse, prevent children’s eating disorders continuing into adulthood and, if admission is required as a last resort, reduce the length of time that people have to stay in hospital.

I am pleased to say that funding for children and young people’s eating disorder services has increased, rising from £46.7 million in 2017-18 to a planned £101 million in 2024-25. With this extra funding, we can focus on enhancing the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country. We are also committed to providing an extra 8,500 new mental health workers across child and adult mental health services to cut waiting times and ensure that people can access treatment and support earlier. Through the 10-year health plan, this Government will overhaul the NHS and ensure that those with mental health needs, including those living with eating disorders, are given the support that they need.

I share the concern of the hon. Member for Bath about accurate recording of deaths to understand the extent to which eating disorders and other factors have caused or contributed to deaths. This matter is being explored with the national medical examiner for England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics and the Coroners’ Society of England and Wales.

Hon. Members also raised concerns about BMI. It is not right that any individual is being refused treatment based on their weight or BMI alone. National guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is clear that single measures such as BMI or duration of illness should not be used to determine whether to offer treatment for an eating disorder. I am ready to receive any representations from colleagues who have evidence that that is happening, and I would be happy to raise that with the appropriate channels.

[John McDonnell]

I raised with the Minister the reform of disability benefits, which will have implications for sufferers and their carers. My understanding is that the universal credit health element is to be denied to those under the age of 22. In addition, it will be halved and then frozen, and the PIP criteria are changing. As I said, I simply want the Minister to check with his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions what the implications are for sufferers of these conditions and their carers. We need specific action to protect them in the consultation; otherwise, people who are already suffering financially as a result of such conditions—particularly when the whole family supports the sufferer—will be further harmed.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I will follow up on those points and write to the right hon. Gentleman. As he knows, the Green Paper is out for consultation. Although the Government have made decisions about some measures, we are consulting and engaging on a number of others. It is very important that we see all the issues that he raises in the round, and I will follow them up with colleagues, particularly in the DWP, and write to him.

I again thank the hon. Member for Bath for raising this important issue and for her tireless efforts in this House to raise awareness of eating disorders. I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful and moving contributions on behalf of their constituents and, in some cases, their loved ones. One person afflicted by an eating disorder is one too many, so the Government will strain every sinew to combat this profoundly debilitating condition.