The increasing number of people with eating disorders and a lack of national guidance for support teams has led to researchers calling for a new national strategy that includes specific guidance to support the remote delivery of eating disorder services.
A paper led by academics at Northumbria University, published in the Journal of Eating Disorders on 27 March, points to figures outlining the scale of the challenges and increasing numbers of people impacted:
The paper states that, in addition to increasing numbers, the lack of national guidance, ad hoc data collection, and inconsistencies in both quality of care and evaluation of service provision are leading to disparities in support provided to people with eating disorders across England. This has led to calls from activists, politicians and the Health and Social Care Committee for the Government to implement a national eating disorder strategy for England.
These calls have been echoed by the researchers who have been leading a three-year project investigating the impact of the rapid transition to remote care during the COVID-19 pandemic on people with eating disorders.
The RHED-C project is led by Dr.
