Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to implement new strategies or projects to combat the problem of eating disorders.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the NHS Long Term Plan, we will invest almost £1 billion extra in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness by 2023/24. This will give 370,000 adults with severe mental illnesses, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities. As part of this we are expanding community eating disorder services capacity, including crisis care and intensive home treatment.
Since 2016, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million per year from 2022/23. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country.
The long-term aim set out within the NHS Long-Term Plan is to improve community support for serious mental illnesses, such as eating disorders, to avoid the need for an inpatient admission where possible.
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.
Investment in Community Eating Disorder teams for children and young people will support prevention, early identification and intervention, offering swift access to treatment.
To accelerate the provision of early intervention eating disorder services for young adults, in 2019/20 NHS England funded 18 sites to implement “First Episode Rapid Early intervention for Eating Disorders” model for 16–25-year-olds. The model is now being adopted more widely.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to prevent children from accessing potentially harmful content online.
Answered by Paul Scully
Protecting children is at the heart of the Government’s Online Safety Bill. All companies in scope will need to take robust steps to protect children from illegal content and criminal behaviour on their services. In addition, services which are likely to be accessed by children, which will include social media platforms, will be required to provide safety measures for child users to protect them from inappropriate and harmful content or activity, such as pornography, bullying and content that promotes or glorifies self-harm, suicide and eating disorders. If they fail to do so, they will be subject to tough enforcement action by the regulator, Ofcom.
Ahead of the Online Safety Bill, video-sharing platform (VSP) providers currently regulated by the VSP regime are required to take ‘appropriate measures’ to protect under-18s from potentially harmful material. Appropriate measures could include, but are not limited to, age assurance, parental controls, and comprehensive terms and conditions.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help prevent children accessing inappropriate material on social media.
Answered by Paul Scully
Protecting children is at the heart of the Government’s Online Safety Bill. All companies in scope will need to take robust steps to protect children from illegal content and criminal behaviour on their services. In addition, services which are likely to be accessed by children, which will include social media platforms, will be required to provide safety measures for child users to protect them from inappropriate and harmful content or activity, such as pornography, bullying and content that promotes or glorifies self-harm, suicide and eating disorders. If they fail to do so, they will be subject to tough enforcement action by the regulator, Ofcom.
Ahead of the Online Safety Bill, video-sharing platform (VSP) providers currently regulated by the VSP regime are required to take ‘appropriate measures’ to protect under-18s from potentially harmful material. Appropriate measures could include, but are not limited to, age assurance, parental controls, and comprehensive terms and conditions.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support young people in danger of developing an eating disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We know that eating disorders are complicated mental health conditions caused by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. It is unclear exactly why someone develops an eating disorder. Since 2016, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million per year from 2022/23. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country.
The long-term aim set out within the NHS Long-Term Plan is to improve community support for serious mental illnesses, such as eating disorders, to avoid the need for an inpatient admission where possible. Investment in Community Eating Disorder teams for children and young people will support prevention, early identification and intervention, offering swift access to treatment. To accelerate the provision of early intervention eating disorder services for young adults, in 2019/20 NHS England funded 18 sites to implement “First Episode Rapid Early intervention for Eating Disorders” model for 16 to 25 year olds. The model is now being adopted more widely.
We are also focussed on delivering commitments made in the Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health green paper to provide early intervention by accelerating the roll out of Mental Health Support Teams. This will support school staff to identify children and young people at risk off or showing signs of mental health difficulties including potential early signs of an eating disorder.
There are currently 287 mental health support teams in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issue.
TARGET DATE 23/06/2023
Mental health support teams now cover 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned and this will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils, by April 2023 with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to improve (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of eating disorders.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Under the NHS Long Term Plan, we will invest almost £1 billion extra in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness by 2023/24. This will give 370,000 adults with severe mental illnesses, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities. As part of this we are expanding community eating disorder services capacity, including crisis care and intensive home treatment.
Since 2016, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million per year from 2022/23. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country.
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.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the use of palliative care for eating disorder patients.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he made of the number of eating disorder patients who were moved into palliative care in each of the last five years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people with eating disorders.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Under the NHS Long Term Plan, the Government has earmarked additional funding to bolster existing mental health services, including eating disorder services, until 2024. Since 2016, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million per year from 2023/24. This extra funding continues to enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country. We expect integrated care boards to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard so that investment in mental health services increases in line with their overall increase in allocation for that year.
NHS England continues to work with system leaders and regions and to ask that areas prioritise service delivery and investment to meet the needs of these vulnerable young people to help ensure funding flows to these services as intended. To support this, 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.
Asked by: Baroness Thornton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their Women’s Health Strategy for England, published on 30 August 2022, what steps they are taking to address the high rates of poor mental health amongst girls and young women.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Plan commits an additional £2.3 billion a year for mental health services in England by 2023/24, supporting an additional two million people, including girls and young women, to get the National Health Service-funded mental health support that they need.
We also continue to make progress on rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges, with 287 in place in over 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing common mental health issues. The number of teams is expected shortly to have increased to 399.
We know that girls and women are more likely to experience an eating disorder, so as part of the NHS Long Term Plan investment, we are putting an extra £1 billion into community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness by 2023/24. This will give 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illnesses, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and will support them to live well in their communities.
Since 2016, extra funding is going into children and young people's community eating disorder services every year, with £54 million per year from 2022/23. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country.
The NHS Long Term Plan also includes measures to improve safety, quality and continuity of care and a commitment for a further 24,000 women to be able to access specialist perinatal mental health care by 2023/24. This care will also be available from preconception to 24 months after birth, which will provide an extra year of support. This expansion includes 33 new Maternal Mental Health Services, which bring together psychological therapy, maternity services and reproductive health for women who have mental health needs following trauma or loss related to their maternity experience. These will be available across England by March 2024.
As outlined in the Women’s Health Strategy, women are one of our priority groups when promoting our Every Mind Matters resource, which includes content to support issues affecting women’s mental health, including life changes such as pregnancy.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many child eating disorder beds there were in the NHS in each year since 2010.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The data in the following table, collected from NHS England, provides the number of National Health Service-commissioned inpatient beds for Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) eating disorder services. It is important to note that NHS England does not hold reliable data for 2016 and prior. Bed numbers can vary throughout the year as units close and new ones open. These figures therefore are the average number of beds across the year.
Service | CAMHS |
2017/2018 | 216 |
2018/2019 | 221 |
2019/2020 | 249 |
2020/2021 | 236 |
2021/2022 | 230 |
2022/2023 | 256 |