Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the quality of care available for Type 1 diabetics with diabulimia; and if he will take steps to improve such provision.

Type 1 Disordered Eating (T1DE), also referred to as diabulimia, is a relatively newly acknowledged condition. NHS England has provided funding for T1DE services across the National Health Services’ regions over the last five years, to help develop service specifications. The first nationally funded T1DE pilot services commenced in 2019 in London and the South Coast of England, latterly including Bournemouth and Portsmouth. A nationally commissioned evaluation was put in place to evidence the impact T1DE services had on patient outcomes and staff experience, and to provide analysis of the NHS costs and savings accrued in running the services.

On the basis of the positive findings from the evaluation of these initial services, and to further build the evidence base, NHS England has provided funding for a further five pilot services in Cheshire and Mersey, Norfolk and Norwich, Coventry and Warwickshire, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and Humber and North Yorkshire for two years, with each pilot running until 31 March 2025.

The new services are delivering a national service specification, and the national team has partnered with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to evaluate delivery, with the intention that, subject to positive findings, integrated care systems can consider the evaluation outputs to determine future locally sustained approaches beyond the initial pump prime national support. NHS England has considered early learning from delivery of these services in the development of a proposal for a wider programme of support for patients nationally. However, our ability to take this forward will be subject to the outcome of the national spending review and confirmation of the NHS England diabetes programme budget.