The COVID-19 crisis has created “a dangerous bottleneck” of children and young people (<19 years) with eating disorders needing help and not receiving it, according to the alcohol and drug rehabilitation provider UK Addiction Treatment (UKAT).
The group was responding to new figures from NHS England which revealed that the number of children and young people waiting to start treatment for eating disorders almost doubled between the end of March 2020 and the end of June 2020.
In the first quarter of this year, 497 children were waiting to start treatment - 441 routine cases and 56 urgent cases. By the end of Q2, this had jumped to 860, with 785 routine cases and 75 urgent cases.
The majority of urgent cases still waiting for treatment to begin were based in the South West, where 14 children were awaiting treatment. There were 12 urgent cases waiting in the South East, and 10 in the East. Nine urgent cases were waiting to begin treatment in the North West, five in the North East, four in the Midlands and two in London.
In a statement, UKAT described the figures as appalling and said the numbers suggest that “more and more children with urgent treatment needs are simply being added to an ever growing pile”.
UKAT eating disorder practitioner Dimitra Theofili said: “The fact that there are 56 children requiring urgent treatment for their eating disorder condition and are still waiting for their treatment is appalling, quite frankly they are being let down."
“We understand and appreciate that this has been a difficult and testing year for the NHS, but we do think that if the Government had provided more transparent guidance as to what health services should still be accessed, alongside the coronavirus crisis, then we might not see so many children with potentially life-threatening eating disorder conditions still waiting for their treatment to begin.”
Last week NHS England announced the scaling up of an early intervention service to support young people in the early stages of eating disorders. The service, to be rolled out in 18 sites across the country, builds on a successful scheme shown to help 16-25-year-olds in London.
