Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NICE on including avoidant restrictive food intake disorder in NICE guidelines on the recognition and treatment of eating disorders.

The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body responsible for developing guidelines in line with its established methods and processes.

When developing its updated guideline on the recognition and treatment of eating disorders, NICE concluded following consultation that avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a relatively new diagnostic category, for which there is little evidence on which to make recommendations. NICE currently has no plans to extend the scope of the guideline to include ARFID.