Eating disorder services in 'crisis' need these changes, says urgent report
A new report from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on eating disorders has issued an urgent call for national reform to address the UK’s escalating eating disorder crisis.
The report, published today, titled The Right to Life: People with Eating Disorders Being Failed, highlights the widespread neglect within eating disorder services across the UK and exposes alarming practices – including the discharge of patients with life-threateningly low BMIs.
With NHS admissions for eating disorders surpassing 30,000 for the first time in 2023/34 (in comparison to 19,000 before the pandemic), the report shows there’s a clear demand for service – and the current system is struggling to keep up.
‘Eating disorders are among the most serious and life-threatening mental illnesses and have been overlooked and underfunded for far too long,’ writes Wera Hobhouse MP, Chair of the APPG, in the foreward.
‘Because of this, eating disorders have one of the largest treatment gaps in modern healthcare. The question must be asked: “Why, in the face of overwhelming need, are we still ignoring this crisis?”’
Systemic neglect exposed
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted by the APPG revealed that many hospital trusts are discharging critically ill patients despite the fact that their BMIs are far below what’s medically deemed ‘safe’ – below 15, and sometimes as low as 11.
‘We are sending people home to die,’ says Hope Virgo, campaigner and Secretariat of the APPG.
‘Over the last few years, the situation for those affected by eating disorders has worsened. People are being denied treatment for being “too thin”, “too sick”, “not sick enough”, or are being labelled “untreatable”, despite clear evidence that people with eating disorders can and do recover. The fact that individuals are being discharged with BMIs under 15 is absolutely unacceptable and a complete injustice.’
The report highlights that there are significant regional disparities in the quality of eating disorder care, exposing a postcode lottery across the UK.
Of the 55 hospital trusts contacted, only nine could provide data on BMI at discharge, with many citing a lack of centralised records as the reason. These gaps in accountability make it difficult to measure the true scale of the crisis.
A crisis made worse by the pandemic
‘Over the past decade, we have seen an alarming rise in eating disorders, a trend that only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ said Hobhouse. ‘What was already a struggling support system for those affected by eating disorders has collapsed under pressure.’
She adds that: ‘This was a problem before the pandemic, and we can no longer hide behind COVID-19 as an excuse for historically grossly underfunded treatment services.’
According to the eating disorder charity, BEAT, over 1.25 million individuals in the UK have an eating disorder. However, this estimate is based on outdated data (from 2015) and doesn’t reflect the full range of conditions, including binge eating.
During COVID-19 BEAT reported a 81% increase in contact across all Helpline channels. While an NHS report that came out in 2023 reported that 12.5% of 17-to-19-year-olds had an eating disorder, with higher rates in young women.
The APPG report says these figures indicate ‘a large, often hidden population-level epidemic’, highlighting that while the public perception of eating disorders is often limited to stereotypes of young, white women with anorexia, eating disorders don’t discriminate. They affect people of all ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds, and the rise of binge eating disorder (BED), now five times more common than anorexia nervosa, further exposes the inadequacy of current services, which fail to address these emerging needs.
‘Eating disorders ruin lives of the sufferers and those around them’
The stories and accounts from patients, families, and clinicians documented in the report make for tough reading. Ellie Smith, a 26-year-old who has battled anorexia for 14 years, shared the devastating impact of her illness and the failures of the system.
‘I have been through more heartache, trauma, loss and pain than most do in a lifetime. And it's all down to my longstanding eating disorder,’ she says.
‘I’ve been sectioned under the Mental Health Act more times than I can remember, spent my years growing up in hospital, been through things no one should ever have to go through, fed through an NG tube via unsafe restraint, restrained to stop me from harming myself, successfully harming myself, and even tried to take my own life on numerous occasions.
‘There are many people like me; I am not alone in this. Eating disorders ruin the lives of the sufferers and those around them. More understanding and help are needed because no one should be left to feel as if they can't get better from what is a treatable illness like I have; and certainly, no one should ever be dying from an eating disorder.
‘We should be living, living life the way we truly want; without being a prisoner to our own mind. I dream of a life where things are different; both for me personally, but also for anyone who is struggling. I wouldn’t wish this beast of an illness on anyone. It's time for help and change.’
A call for change
With clear evidence of systemic neglect and underfunding, the AGGP report calls for immediate action, including the creation of a national strategy for eating disorder services, to ensure that patients suffering from eating disorders receive the support they urgently need and deserve.
The report also emphasised the need for significant investment in research to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes.
‘Eating disorders must be treated as the emergency they are,’ said Hobhouse.
Key recommendations:
- Develop a comprehensive national strategy, supported by adequate funding to reform all eating disorder services.
- Mandatory eating disorder training for all front-line workers (including GPs, dentists, teachers and nurses)
- Increased investment into research funding to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes.
- A confidential inquiry to investigate deaths related to eating disorders to identify systemic failures.
Who to contact if you need eating disorder help
Get in touch with your GP and explain what's going on, so you can be referred for specialist help
Contact Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, on 0808 801 0677 or beateatingdisorders.org.uk
Get in touch with eating disorder support service Seed on 01482 718130 or seedeatingdisorders.org.uk
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