If you are an elected politician or a member of their staff, and a constituent has contacted you about a decision related to their eating disorder treatment—or the treatment of someone they care for—that may not have followed recommended clinical guidance or best practice, we may be able to help.
Our Advisory Service can advise you on the steps you could take to challenge and overturn the decision, supporting you in ensuring that your constituent gets the eating disorder care and treatment they deserve. Beat and the NHS share a steadfast commitment to evidence-based practice, and we want to work with the NHS to ensure that nobody with an eating disorder is denied it at any stage of their illness.
Please note that this is a free service.
We regularly hear from people with eating disorder - and those that support them - who may have been denied a referral, assessment, information or treatment for their eating disorders that guidelines say they have a reasonable entitlement to.
These decisions may be a result of a decision maker, such as a clinician, not having the full information or training on eating disorders, or because of an NHS commissioning decision. In either case, the guidelines should still be followed. Not only can this impact the person with the eating disorder and increase the strain on families and carers, but such decisions can result in the eating disorder worsening and have a long-term impact on the NHS.
If you aren't sure whether a decision is in line with clinical best practice, we may be able to help you find this out by advising you on what the guidelines say.
We have an in-depth understanding of eating disorder services, treatment pathways and ways to overturn decisions that are not in line with clinical guidance which have been developed from supporting thousands of people affected by eating disorders.
Politicians and their teams have a better understanding of their constituencies or regions, more authority within them, and access to different local networks.
By working together, we can ensure that decisions that aren't in line with clinical guidelines are overturned to ensure people with eating disorders get the support they need as soon as possible.
What we can advise you (and your staff) on:
We can continue to guide you and your staff through this process until the decision is overturned. In turn, we would value being updated on the outcome of each case to enable us to measure the effectiveness of the service.
We’ve had the privilege of working with many politicians over the years. Here’s what one had to say about working with us:
“I can say with certainty that without your initial case management direction, I would not have been able to act with the necessary speed to support my constituent in this vital and complex case. Your guidance on tone was essential in establishing a constructive, albeit critical, relationship with her primary care clinicians. Additionally, your willingness to review correspondence in advance gave me the confidence to send what would have otherwise been a quite risky letter for an MP with only two weeks' tenure”
Please note that we work according to the available treatment guidelines and are therefore unable to challenge clinically appropriate decisions that a constituent may disagree with. If this is the case, or if your constituent is seeking to make a complaint, we will direct you to alternative avenues. Moreover, while we campaign for waiting times to be shorter for all patients, we cannot seek to advance the position of an individual on a waiting list.
If you would like our support after reading the above then please fill out this form and we will aim to contact you within 10 working days.
For a summary of the advisory service, we have downloadable resources for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
If you are not a politician or a member of a politician’s staff and are seeking support for yourself or a loved one, please contact our helpline team. They can provide information and support for eating disorders. Contact our helpline team.