News / Society

‘Eating disorder patients risk lives in UK over NHS wait’

Monday, 15 June 2015 1:27 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 15 June 2015 1:27 PM ]

People with eating disorders face risks over NHS wait in the UK. (file photo)

People with eating disorders in the United Kingdom risk their lives over the long wait for National Health Service (NHS) treatments.

Eating disorders, similarly to mental health, are health issues that are not widely discussed and highlighted in the UK, compared to other deadly diseases. Many believe that successive governments have not put adequate funding or support to combat eating disorders.

Experts say that vital services are being compromised due to a growing number of patients and a lack of funding, two factors that lead to specialists placing anorexia as the priority condition while other disorders such as bulimia are often sidelined. Patients that have to wait for treatment often experience greater health complications, making it harder to treat.

Ulrike Schmidt, professor of eating disorders at King’s College London, believes that “certain services only see people when they reach a certain level of severity with their eating disorder. People might be told that their weight isn’t low enough to be seen, that they need to get sicker to get seen.”

Schmidt is widely regarded as one of the top NHS specialists. She believes that “it’s horrible for patients to be told that you have to get worse before you get any specialist help. That’s soul-destroying and very frightening…adults with eating disorders do often wait a long time; that can be more than six months.”

The government has pledged £150 million to help ease the burden on the NHS. The Department for Health has said, “For years, services that treat people with eating disorders have suffered from underinvestment and haven’t been prioritised by the NHS. We are putting this right…for the first time in the history of the NHS, we are introducing new targets so that patients have the same guarantees about treatment times they would for a physical condition.”

In many eating disorder cases, those suffering have been forced to seek treatment privately or travel abroad. Campaigners have welcomed the government’s injection of funding, but warn that far more needs to be done to combat eating disorders.

LM/GHN

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