Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the commissioning of integrated services for eating disorders for (1) children and young people, and (2) adults.

NHS England is refreshing guidance on children and young people's eating disorders, including to increase the focus on early identification and intervention. Updated guidance will highlight the importance of improved integration between dedicated community eating disorder services, wider children and young people's mental health services, schools, colleges and primary care to improve awareness, provide expert advice and improve support for children and young people presenting with problems with eating, whilst ensuring swift access to specialist support as soon as an eating disorder is suspected.

Improving adult eating disorder (AED) services is a key priority for NHS England and a fundamental part of our LTP commitment to expand and improve mental health services.

The NHS Long Term Plan sets out an ambition to give 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities by 2023/24. This includes creating integrated pathways of care across primary care, mental health services, VCS organisations, and social care, for people with severe mental illness. This programme will deliver just under £1 billion of additional funding per year for transforming community mental health by 2023/24.

Since April 2021 all integrated care systems (ICSs) have received fair-share funding to transform their community mental health services, including eating disorders, with the expectation that all ICS will have transformed AED services in place by 2023/24.