I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a requirement for persons providing certain public services to undertake training relating to eating disorders and disordered eating; to make provision about the delivery and content of such training; and for connected purposes.
As many colleagues will know, this Bill is deeply personal to me. I have spoken before about how my youngest child’s experience with an eating disorder exposed me to the scale of failings across child and adolescent mental health services, wider mental health services and our in-patient system.
The Bill will not fix every one of those problems, but I do want to place on record my sincere thanks to the Department of Health and Social Care, particularly the Minister for Care and the Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, for their genuine commitment to understanding this crisis and their determination to confront it head-on.
Turning to the Bill itself, I have chosen to focus on training for frontline public service workers, ensuring that they are equipped to recognise and safeguard those experiencing one of the most misunderstood mental health conditions. The evidence is clear: early intervention—spotting the signs quickly and accessing appropriate care—dramatically improves outcomes. It can reduce the need for in-patient or day patient treatment by around 35%, meaning fewer hospital admissions and far less disruption to everyday life.
Yet eating disorders remain profoundly misunderstood. Unlike many other illnesses, the person affected may actively resist help. These conditions often drive secrecy, denial and a determination to mask the harm being done both to the individual and to the people who love them most. As with domestic abuse, it is so often our frontline public service workers who, in those brief moments when a sufferer allows their guard to drop, are best placed to reassure them that recovery is both possible and within reach.
Eating disorders do not only cause physical and mental deterioration; we must not forget that eating disorders carry the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. The most recent confirmed data from the Office for National Statistics recorded 36 deaths for 2019, yet research from the US suggests that the true figure for the UK could be far higher, potentially closer to 1,860 deaths once under-reporting and misclassification are accounted for.
Hospital admissions tell a similar story. Admissions exceeded 30,000 for the first time in 2023-24, which is a 60% rise compared with pre-pandemic levels. I fear that without legislative action we will continue to reach these devastating milestones: more children losing their childhoods, more parents fighting desperately just to have their child heard, and more entirely preventable deaths.
The framework for the training proposed in the Bill already exists. As I have said, it mirrors the approach taken for domestic abuse inquiries, giving frontline professionals the skills to ask sensitive, safe and appropriate questions. I firmly believe that the vast majority of dedicated frontline staff want to help. This Bill simply gives them the tools and confidence to do so.