NHS must stop sending eating disorder patients to die, watchdog says

NHS teams are giving up on patients with severe eating disorders, sending them for care reserved for the dying rather than trying to treat them, a watchdog has warned the government.

In a letter to minister Maria Caulfield, the parliamentary health service ombudsman Rob Behrens has hit out at the government and the NHS for failures in care for adults with eating disorders despite warnings first made by his office in 2017.

The letter, seen by The Independent, urged the minister to act after Mr Behrens heard evidence that eating disorder patients deemed “too difficult to treat” are being offered palliative care instead of treatment to help them recover.

The ombudsman first warned the government that “avoidable harm” was occurring and patients were being repeatedly failed by NHS systems in 2017, following an investigation into the death of Averil Hart.

The 19-year-old died while under the care of adult eating disorder services in Norfolk and Cambridge. In 2021, following an inquest into her death and the deaths of four other women, a senior coroner for Cambridge, Sean Horstead, also sent warnings to the government about adult community eating disorder services.

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Source: The Independent, 27 March 2024