Eating Disorders Awareness Week
Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Zubir Ahmed(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dr Zubir Ahmed)
It is an honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing today’s debate and raising this important topic—as she always does. I also pay tribute to her for her long-standing advocacy on this topic and for all the work she does in the eating disorders all-party parliamentary group. She is joined today by a number of hon. Members from across the House, who have made thoughtful contributions.
One hon. Member who is conspicuous by his absence—he has already been mentioned, and I informed him in advance that I would mention him too, Ms Vaz—is my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley). He is my friend, and he is conspicuous because of the tireless work he does and the way he advocates for persons with eating disorders. I know that that is born out of personal interest and pain. We miss his presence here today and send him our good wishes from across the House.
It is important that we are having this debate today to note Eating Disorders Awareness Week. This year’s theme rightly places the focus on the power of community, which speaks to a simple but profound truth: no one should face an eating disorder alone. Recovery is not only about clinical treatment, vital though that is; it is also about the networks of support that surround that individual—not only health professionals, but mums, dads, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, colleagues and many others.
Wera Hobhouse
One of the most harrowing things that we hear again and again when taking evidence in the APPG is how families feel completely abandoned. People have to give up work, often over years, because they are meant to care for someone with a severe condition and they do not have the capacity to do so by themselves. It is only when that condition is finally so bad that the loved one is then readmitted to hospital. That revolving door must end. The human cost to that tragedy—apart from the cost to the NHS—must end. It is absolutely tragic and wrong.
Dr Ahmed
I wholeheartedly agree. The Government are committed to ending the revolving door for many conditions—this is an exemplar, in many ways—by joining up care and the streams of information that underpin it. One of our main commitments in our 10-year health plan is to have more joined-up care, to move it from sickness to prevention and to move from hospital into community, where that join-up can happen.
This community can thrive only when it is built on a foundation of timely, effective care. That is why we are focused on reforming eating disorder services so that people can access help when they need it, not after their condition has escalated. That approach underpins the new NHS guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, published last month, which is clear that care should be timely, joined up and delivered as close to home as possible.
As many here know, demand for mental health support, including eating disorder services, rose sharply during the pandemic, and the rise has been sustained thereafter. Although services remain under significant pressure, as a result of the additional investment there are some green shoots in system capacity and capability to better meet rising demand and reduce the waits that hon. Members have described.
In December 2025, 83.3% of routine referrals to children and young people’s community eating disorder services and 78.8% of urgent referrals started treatment within four weeks and one week respectively. That is a marked improvement in performance, compared with the situation six months earlier. In June last year, only 72.2% of routine referrals and 63.7% of urgent referrals were seen within four weeks and one week respectively. Although those are encouraging signs, I am under no illusion: too many children and young people are still waiting far too long for support. That is exactly why further reform and delivery are needed.
The Government’s long-term approach to mental health reform is set out in the 10-year health plan, which is clear in its direction. It shifts care from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention and, of course, from analogue to digital, which will be so important when it comes to having joined-up care. I assure hon. Members that those shifts are not abstract principles, but practical changes that are already being embedded. I know that they matter deeply for people living with eating disorders, and the families and loved ones who support them.
But I recognise that plans alone do not deliver care. Delivery depends on people and having the right workforce with the right skills in the right places. That is why, on top of the workforce plan that will come to fruition in late spring or early summer, we are investing in the workforce. We are committed to providing an additional 8,500 new mental health professionals across child and adult mental health services, to cutting waiting times and to ensuring that people access treatment and support earlier than ever before.
We are also working to strengthen skills and capability across the system. NHS England has introduced comprehensive training to ensure that staff across mental and physical health services can recognise eating disorders early and respond safely and effectively. That training supports clinicians working not only in the community but in primary and, crucially, acute care settings, where I used to work. I often saw such patients on my acute general surgical receiving ward rounds. The training includes specialist programmes, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ eating disorders credential, expanded access to family-based therapies, cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders, and dedicated training on ARFID, which the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) mentioned. That work is about giving staff the skills, confidence and, crucially, clarity they need to deliver safe, high-quality care and reduce some of the avoidable harm that we have discussed today.
I am pleased to say that funding for children and young people’s eating disorder services has increased significantly, from £46.7 million in 2017-18 to an actual spend of £106.3 million in 2024-25. With that extra funding, we have focused on enhancing the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country, because we know that timely, effective care leads to better outcomes, supports recovery and helps to prevent conditions escalating to the point at which hospital admission becomes inevitable.
When admission is necessary, stronger community care can reduce length of stay when it is safe. We recognise the concerns that in-patient capacity remains under pressure in some parts of our country. There are reports of individuals being discharged at very low body mass due to bed availability, as the hon. Member for Bath highlighted. Discharge decisions must always be about clinical judgment and patient safety, not capacity constraints. NHS England reassures me and continues to work with providers and integrated care boards to ensure that sufficient specialist provision and safe step-down pathways will be in place.
Dr Ahmed
As always, the hon. Lady reads too much into my words. I am a Scot, so for me, spring and summer sometimes mean the same thing—and indeed winter. I can reassure her that there was no subtext to that nuance earlier in my speech. We remain committed and are on track to deliver on the workforce plan.
We recognise concerns, of course, and NHS England is addressing them. Prevention must be central to how we respond to eating disorders, particularly for children and young people. That is why we are also providing £13 million to strengthen the role of mental health support teams in schools and colleges through enhancements, so that concerns about disordered eating and body image can be identified and addressed much earlier. Acting sooner improves outcomes, reduces the need for more intensive treatment later and helps to ensure that our young people get the support they need, at the right time.
We are encouraged by the progress being made, but I am under no illusions. I know that sustained improvement depends on clear, consistent expectations for high-quality care across the whole pathway. That is why, alongside the 10-year health plan, we are developing a modern service framework for severe mental illness, which I can reassure the House will include eating disorders, to help to reduce avoidable harm from them and improve outcomes for persons affected by them. However, to get it right, we need expert input across the system, so my noble Friend Baroness Merron, the Minister responsible for mental health, will be hosting a roundtable discussion with eating disorder charities, clinicians and those with lived experience, to ensure that the modern service framework delivers meaningful improvements for people with eating disorders, with lived experience at the heart of it.
We have spoken, rightly, about online safety issues as they intersect with mental illness and eating disorders. As a parent, I of course remain deeply concerned about the widespread availability online of harmful material promoting eating disorders, suicide and self-harm, which can be far too easily accessed by people, including young people, who may be vulnerable. The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 makes platforms—including social media, search and pornography services—legally responsible for keeping people, especially children, safe online. All providers must mitigate the risks of illegal harm on their services, and all providers of services likely to be accessed by children must take steps to mitigate their risks to children, especially as regards content related to eating disorders.
Wera Hobhouse
The Minister is very generous with his time. I mentioned this issue in my speech and I see it across the board, not just with regard to eating disorders. The Online Safety Act provides that Ofcom can intervene, but only if the content is reported, so we are relying on often very vulnerable people to report something before Ofcom intervenes. That cannot be right. There has to be a stronger emphasis on the social media platforms actually taking down accounts very quickly and, as I have also said, ensuring that they do not just reappear under a different name.
Dr Ahmed
The hon. Lady makes a really valid point. She will know, as I do, that the regulation of these platforms in relation to children’s access is a live issue at the heart of Government at the moment. She is right: the current provisions are not strong enough to be adequate safeguards. We do need more proactive intervention from our technology partners. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology takes that very seriously and is pushing very hard on it in relation to not only harm in this space, but harm in general, for children online.
Ofcom ensures that services uphold these duties, including for smaller online sites. Its small but risky services taskforce has assessed 20 services relating to this harm, over half of which have been at high risk for eating disorder content. I am happy to write to my colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, on the back of this debate, to learn from them what further action specific to eating disorders is coming down the pipeline, and I can relay that information to hon. Members assembled in this Chamber today.
I also share the deep concern about reports of people with eating disorders being offered end-of-life care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Zubir Ahmed(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Dr Ahmed
I thank my hon. Friend for all her tireless work to improve the lives of people living with mental illness and to prevent suicide. The 10-year health plan will build on the work that has already been done to reduce waiting lists, including through an extra £688 million of real-terms investment this year, the hiring of more staff and the expansion of talking therapies for an extra 380,000 patients. In addition, as she will know, the Mental Health Bill, which is in its final parliamentary stages, will modernise legislation and make a significant impact on the lives of those who live with mental illness.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
My all-party parliamentary group on eating disorders recently published a report on preventing eating disorder-related death. The report highlighted that eating disorders are not accurately recorded on death certificates. I was promised an update from the Minister for Women’s Health and Mental Health over two months ago, but am yet to receive one. How much longer will I have to wait?