Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is planning to take to help improve the diagnostic rates of children with Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID).

In 2019/20, NHS England and NHS Improvement funded seven community eating disorder teams in each region in England for children and young people in a pilot programme to improve access, assessment and treatment for children presenting with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). The pilots included training to support the adaption of each service’s existing care pathways, assessments and treatment interventions for children and young people with ARFID. The training from these pilots is now available for local areas to commission community children and young people’s eating disorder services. In 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement also commissioned ARFID training for staff delivering treatment in inpatient children and young people’s mental health services.