Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 October 2018 to Question 179179 on Eating Disorders, and with reference to recommendation two on page five of the report entitled, Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients, published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on 6 December 2017, what plans he has to achieve parity between adult eating disorder services and child and adolescent services; what funding has been allocated to achieve that parity; and if he will make a statement.

The Government takes seriously the report of the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (PHSO) ‘Ignoring the alarms: how NHS eating disorder services are failing patients’, including the recommendation to achieve parity between adult eating disorders services and children and young people services.

NHS England is now working to understand the geographical variation of current services, and the cost and workforce required to achieve parity with children and young people’s eating disorder services.

NHS England has set up a working group, chaired by Professor Tim Kendall, the NHS England and NHS Improvement National Clinical Director for Mental Health, to address the PHSO’s recommendations and take them into account in planning for improvements to eating disorder services.

The NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January 2019, sets out NHS England’s proposals to improve care for adults include maintaining and developing new services for those who have the most complex needs. The recently published ‘NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance 2019/20 Annex B: Guidance for operational and activity plans - assurance statements’ to accompany the NHS Planning Guidance for 2019/20 makes clear that these services include services for adults with eating disorders.