Eating disorder patients left in 'dangerous' state

People with eating disorders are being discharged from care when they remain dangerously unwell, a campaigner has warned.

Hope Virgo, from Bristol, had an eating disorder as a teenager and advised the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders whose report calls for urgent action.

She said patients were "so malnourished, so underweight in some situations that they're living in a life-threatening state".

A government spokesperson said: "We want to go further to support those with mental health issues, including eating disorders."

Ms Virgo, who lives in Stoke Bishop, said she had heard of cases where people were discharged when they had "dangerously low" body mass index (BMI).

"What we found through an FOI [Freedom of Information request] was that clinicians were often blaming patients for the fact they weren't recovering fast enough, that they weren't motivated to recover," she said.

It comes after the report, published last week, highlighted major failures across the board and an "alarming" rise in disorders over the past decade.

Hospital admissions for eating disorders in England have steadily increased since 2000 and surged since the pandemic, with more than 31,000 admissions in 2023-24.

The rise in disorders has now become an "emergency", the report published last week said.

The report also stated that services are "grossly" underfunded, there are barriers to accessing treatment and wide variations in care quality across the UK.

Among its recommendations, the group calls for a national strategy to support adults, young people, their families and healthcare staff working in the sector, as well as mandatory training for frontline staff like teachers and nurses so they can spot the signs of illnesses and offer support.

The report's findings were backed up by the South West Eating Disorder Association.

The charity's CEO Paula Blight said conditions such as anorexia and bulimia have "the highest death rate within mental health".

She said the funding of children's services in Bristol was "very patchy" and is creating an "extremely dangerous" situation.

"It's something really key because we want to get to the children before they get a full-blown eating disorder," she said.

"Often they get into the services when they've been diagnosed and quite frankly we believe that's too late."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said clinical guidance is clear that decisions on discharge should never be made based solely on weight or BMI.

"Our 10 Year Health Plan will improve access to essential mental health services including giving an additional 380,000 patients access to the NHS Talking Therapies programme, recruiting an extra 8,500 adult and child mental health staff and providing access to mental health support in every school," they added.

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