PHSO submission: PACAC’s follow-up to PHSO report ‘Ignoring the Alarms’ Inquiry (April 2018)

Summary

The Parliamentary Healthcare Service Ombudsman published 'Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients' in December 2017. The families who brought forward their complaints helped uncover serious issues that required national attention. The failings catalogued in the report highlighted a systemic set of problems in relation to identifying, treating and monitoring eating disorders that require a systemic response. This encompasses raising awareness among clinicians, building greater specialist capability and ensuring adult eating disorder services achieve parity with child and adolescent services. This submission provides an overview of the report’s systemic findings and the responses seen to the systemic recommendations made to date.