Eating disorder services review: summary recommendations

Summary of background and context:

• Eating disorders are severe mental illnesses with the highest mortality of all mental disorders;
• There are 4 main eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder;
• They are common and costly;
• Evidence based treatment is available;
• Current service response in Scotland is geographically inequitable and underfunded;
• Current service response in Scotland is focused on the severely ill and mostly on anorexia nervosa to the detriment of other eating disorders;
• There needs to be provision of services across the spectrum of diagnoses, age and severity which is appropriate to each person;
• The experience of people with eating disorders and their families asking for help is variable across Scotland.