Recommendation 6

HM Government Rejected

As outlined in our response to recommendation 1 above, we are developing a major conditions strategy, which will include prevention through to treatment for mental ill health. We will draw on the responses we received during last year’s 12-week public call for evidence on what can be done across government in the longer term to support mental health and wellbeing , as well as work closely with stakeholders in the coming weeks to identify actions that will have the most impact. As we expect eating disorders will be considered as part of this work, the government does not intend to publish a separate national eating disorder strategy. The government accepts the research part of the recommendation. DHSC commissions research through NIHR . In 2021 to 2022, NIHR spent approximately £120 million on mental health research, which reflects a significant year-on-year increase in investment. It is not usual practice for NIHR to ring-fence funding for particular topics or conditions – however, NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including body image. Qualitative research on young people’s experience of online eating disorder content has recently been published. Further to this, NIHR is partnering with the Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Medical Research Foundation to fund new collaborations to support eating disorders research . A key objective of this initiative is to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration by mobilising academia, industry, the charity sector, local authorities and service providers from associated areas to align their interest to eating disorders research. The specification welcomes proposals into “socio-cultural risk and protective factors, including body image and social media” and encourages applicants to consider under-represented groups living with eating disorders, including but not limited to: middle-aged and older individuals ethnic minorities LGBT individuals neurodiverse individuals In August 2021, NIHR launched an ambitious Mental Health Research Initiative spanning NIHR -funded programmes and infrastructure, which included a £30 million investment, to rebalance the scale of mental health research through: broadening and understanding current mental health research capacity supporting research collaborations across NIHR funding high-quality mental health research The initiative has a focus on regions and groups where mental health research is most needed, including children and young people, ethnic minorities and people with pre-existing physical health conditions. NIHR will continue to explore ways to address this recommendation for research that seeks to understand the causal pathways that are leading to a rise in body image dissatisfaction across the population and the impact of social media on body image. Under the NHS Long Term Plan , the government has earmarked additional funding to bolster existing mental health services, including eating disorder services, until 2023 to 2024. Since 2016, investment in children and young people’s community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million a year from 2022 to 2023. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country. We will invest almost £1 billion extra in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness by 2023 to 2024, which will give 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illnesses, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities. In recognition of the rising demand created by coronavirus (COVID-19), we invested £58 million in 2021 to 2022 to support the expansion of adult community mental health services, including those for eating disorders. We invested £79 million extra to significantly expand children’s mental health services, including enabling at least 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services. NHS England continues to work with system leaders and regions, and to ask that areas prioritise service delivery and investment to meet the needs of these vulnerable young people and help ensure funding flows to these services as intended. To support this, NHS England is refreshing guidance on children and young people’s eating disorders, including to increase the focus on early identification and intervention. Updated guidance will highlight the importance of improved integration between dedicated community eating disorder services, wider children and young people’s mental health services, schools, colleges and primary care to: improve awareness provide expert advice improve support for children and young people presenting with problems with eating ensure swift access to specialist support as soon as an eating disorder is suspected NHS England also invested a further £40 million in 2021 to 2022 to ad