Beyond hospital walls: intensive digital and home-based treatment for severe eating disorders across the lifespan

Date: Thursday 18 June
Time: 11.55am - 1.10pm

Overview

Remote and digital care is now embedded across psychiatry, yet uncertainty remains about a core clinical question: which patients can be treated safely, acceptably, and effectively outside hospital? Eating disorder services provide a particularly demanding test case, given high medical risk, treatment intensity, and a long-standing reliance on inpatient care.

This symposium presents UK research and service innovation examining how established, evidence-based treatments can be adapted from analogue to digital delivery and from hospital to home, without compromising outcomes or safety. Although focused on eating disorders, the lessons are directly relevant to other psychiatric specialties considering intensive remote care.

The session begins with findings from the TRIANGLE programme, presented by Professor  Valentina Cardi, Dr Katie Rowlands and Dr Ashish Kumar, examining guided self-help interventions for anorexia nervosa and carers across the age range. These studies demonstrate good acceptability and meaningful engagement in selected populations, clarifying how structured digital interventions can extend access when embedded within stepped care pathways.

The focus then shifts to patients who would traditionally require inpatient admission. Dr Laura Coglan presents outcome and acceptability data from the Thames Valley CAMHS Hospital at Home service, a fully virtual adaptation of Family-Based Treatment. This model achieved high admission avoidance, consistent weight restoration, and strong patient and family satisfaction, while reducing disruption to education and family life.

Dr Agnes Ayton presents data from the adult Eating Disorder Provider Collaborative in the Thames Valley, describing the adaptation of CBT-E for intensive remote delivery across inpatient and community interfaces. This work demonstrates good clinical outcomes, reduced readmissions, and high acceptability to patients and staff, challenging assumptions that severe and enduring illness necessarily requires prolonged hospitalisation.

The session concludes by drawing out transferable principles for pathway redesign, risk management, and workforce development relevant across psychiatric services.

This session aims to:

  • understand how evidence-based psychiatric treatments can be adapted from face-to-face to intensive remote delivery
  • review outcome and acceptability data from hospital-to-home models for patients at different stages of the illness and across the life span
  • explore how guided self-help and intensive remote care can be integrated within stepped and stratified pathways
  • identify practical lessons for safe implementation of remote intensive care across psychiatric specialties.

Speakers

  • Chair: Professor Janet Treasure, King's College London, London
  • Guided self-help for anorexia nervosa: Evidence from the TRIANGLE Trial
    • Dr Katie Rowlands, King’s College London, London
    • Professor Valentina Cardi, University of Padova, Italy
  • From Trials to Practice: Implementing Digital Guided Self-Help in NHS CAMHS-ED Service
    • Dr Ashish Kumar, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool
  • Adapting Family-Based Treatment for Intensive Remote Delivery in CAMHS
    • Dr Laura Coglan, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Marlborough
  • Adapting CBT-E for Intensive Remote Delivery: Bridging the Gap Between Hospital and Community Care
    • Dr Agnes Ayton, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford
Register for Congress 2026

Please email congress@rcpsych.ac.uk or call 020 8618 4120 with any enquiries.