Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people with anorexia have access to timely treatment and early intervention.

The Government made £150 million of additional investment available in the 2014 Autumn Statement for children and young people’s eating disorder services (including services for anorexia), over the five years to 2019/20. From April 2017, we established a new eating disorder service waiting time for children and young people – with the ambition that by 2020/21 95% of children will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases.

The latest data from NHS England showed that in Q1 2017-18 73.3% of patients started urgent treatment within one week and 78.7% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks.

NHS England has now commissioned 70 new or enhanced community services for eating disorders so everyone can get the help they need to manage these conditions. The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health in partnership with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is developing a pathway for adults with eating disorders, together with detailed implementation guidance for providers, during 2017/18. The pathway will be fully informed by the available evidence and the views of experts.

NICE also published its updated Clinical Guideline: Eating Disorders – recognition and treatment, on managing and treating eating disorders for the over 8s - including adults, children and young people in May 2017.