Responding to new findings from the Royal College of Psychiatrists over planned spending cuts to children’s eating disorder services, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said:

“These findings will ring alarm bells for trust leaders who have consistently raised concerns about the major mismatch between soaring demand for eating disorder services and their ability to provide them.

“The scale of the challenge is really worrying with one trust leader telling us of a 127% increase in referrals to eating disorders in their trust in 2022/23 compared to 2019/20.

“As well as major challenges for mental health services, the knock-on effect is being felt within acute trusts too with an increasing number of children and young people with eating disorders presenting in emergency departments and being admitted to adult hospital beds.

“While there has been welcome investment in eating disorder services for children and young people, it’s clear more needs to be done to improve performance against access and waiting time targets.”