Eating disorders story makes national headlines
The College has marked Eating Disorders Awareness Week by highlighting that child and adolescent eating disorder services have never achieved NHS waiting time targets.
NHS England set a target for 95% of children and young people with an urgent eating disorder referral to be seen within a week, and for 95% of routine referrals to be seen within four weeks. But these standards have not been achieved nationwide since they were introduced in 2021.
RCPsych analysis of the latest data shows that just 63.8% of children and young people needing urgent treatment from eating disorder services were seen within one week, while only 79.4% of children and young people with a routine referral were seen within four weeks.
The College has called on Government and Integrated Care Boards to invest in targeted support for children and young people to reverse this eating disorder crisis. The call is backed by the UK’s eating disorder charity Beat.
The story was covered by the Independent and the Mail Online as well as featured in nearly 200 regional outlets, following an interview with Press Association of the Chair of the College’s Faculty of Eating Disorders Psychiatry, Dr Ashish Kumar.
We also drew attention to the unacceptable gap between the number of children being referred to specialist eating disorders services, and those being seen. This is driven by a shortfall in the number of trained therapists and eating disorders psychiatrists.
Between April and December 2023, on average 6,073 children and young people per quarter were referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) specialist eating disorders services by their GP. But only 2,512 entered treatment on average.
The NHS has made more funds available for children’s eating disorders services, but the view of the College is that it is taking too long for this funding to reach frontline services in some places.
The College will continue to call for better mental health support for children and young people, which includes ensuring services have the staff and resources they need to meet demand.