Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to commission national training to support the workforce delivering Children and Young People’s Eating Disorder Services.

NHS England already has comprehensive eating disorder training in place for staff across mental and physical health services, including those delivering Children and Young People’s Eating Disorder Services (CYP ED). This covers both awareness-raising and specialist up-skilling, with e-learning and simulation training available to doctors, general practitioners and primary care clinicians, nurses across all four branches, acute hospital staff, dietitians, and pharmacy teams.

Following the 2017 Ombudsman report Ignoring the Alarms, NHS England worked with Beat and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to strengthen training on the safe medical management of eating disorders, which remains available. More recently, NHS England has commissioned further specialist training to support the CYP ED workforce, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Eating Disorders Credential, family-based therapies, cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders, and training on Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.

Together, this national programme of training ensures that the workforce is better equipped to identify risk early and provide safe, effective, evidence-based care for children and young people wherever they present.