12.12.16
Bed shortages force English anorexia patients to Scotland for care
The NHS has been forced to send English patients with eating disorders to Scotland for treatment due to chronic bed shortages, reports have found.
The patients, who are mostly teenagers and young adults, have been taken hundreds of miles from their homes to private Glasgow and Edinburgh hospitals for residential care, the Guardian revealed.
The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, slammed the practice as “completely unacceptable” and added that ministers had earmarked £150m for enhanced community services to tackle mental health problems in young people sooner.
“It is clearly unacceptable for people to be sent hundreds of miles away for care at a time when they need the support of friends and family the most,” Hunt said.
“That’s why in April we committed to a national ambition to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements by 2020-21.”
Doctors, eating disorders charities and patients reported that the quality of care of the NHS in England is being compromised by having too few beds to cope with the growing number of cases involving eating disorders, hence the mass influx of English patients in Scotland.
Experts have voiced concern about the trend, saying that it could increase patients’ sense of isolation from their families and even increase their risk of dying from their condition.
“I’ve seen a rise in calls from people saying their children have been sent far away, miles away, to be looked after because there are either no services nearby or they are full,” said Jane Smith, chief executive of Anorexia and Bulimia Care.
“This is a life-threatening situation for young people. People are in inpatient care because they are at risk of dying. They are in a very fragile, risky state.”
NHS England declined to reveal how many patients from England were receiving treatment for eating disorders in Scotland. However, it said that plans have been made to expand the supply of specialist beds to treat eating disorder patients and will take time to implement.
A spokeswoman for NHS England said: “The NHS recently laid out very clear plans to expand staff and services for specialist eating disorders and other mental health problems, in order to tackle and eliminate distant out-of-area placements.
“Transformation won’t happen overnight but work is under way to improve services for everyone and to make sure care is available at home or as close to home as possible when a patient needs more intensive therapy.”
The spokeswoman added that the government has allocated a cumulative £1.4bn to children and young people’s mental health services by 2020 to help ensure that patients get better care more quickly.
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