NHS England published its quarterly data on children and young people with an eating disorder waiting times for the first quarter 2022-23. The findings show that of the 230 children and young people currently on the waiting list for urgent treatment, 44 per cent have been waiting for more than 12 weeks.
Dr Agnes Ayton, Chair of the Eating Disorders Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists said:
“It’s simply unacceptable that more than 100 of the most seriously unwell young people have been forced to wait over 3 months to access specialist treatment.
“Delays to treatment can cause young people to become even more unwell and take much longer to recover.
“Eating disorder services have been struggling since the early stages of the pandemic to meet rising demand and the pandemic backlog has made it impossible to meet waiting times targets.
“We need government and NHS leaders to ensure specialist eating disorder services are supported to tackle their waiting lists with the same level of focus given to elective care.”
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