Westminster Hall Debate on Eating Disorders

Working alongside Beat and campaigner Hope Virgo, Wera Hobhouse MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders, secured a Westminster Hall debate on 1 April for eating disorder awareness.

MPs from different political parties raised several key issues which Beat, and others, have long campaigned on, calling for urgent action to improve support for people affected by eating disorders.

In the debate it was highlighted that:

• Many areas lack adequate intensive community and day services, creating a postcode lottery and forcing people to travel far from home to access care. Several MPs cited our report, ‘There’s No Place Like Home, reinforcing our calls for equitable access to intensive community and day treatment.
• People are being denied treatment because they are “not thin enough” or considered “too complex”, with some inappropriately placed on palliative care pathways.
• There are serious concerns about the continued use of BMI as a threshold for care, despite clinical guidance advising against this.
• Hospital admissions for eating disorders have reached record highs, with over 30,000 admissions in 2023–24 alone.
• Social media platforms continue to promote harmful content related to eating disorders, with calls for stronger enforcement of the Online Safety Act.
• There is a lack of robust data on eating disorder-related deaths, limiting prevention and accountability.
• A fully funded, dedicated national eating disorder strategy was essential to address the crisis, with MPs calling for its urgent development and implementation.

We are particularly grateful to the MPs who spoke powerfully about their own experiences.

Perran Moon MP (Labour, Camborne and Redruth) shared his experience as a parent of a child with anorexia, describing the anguish of having to wait until they became critically unwell before they could access care.

Chris Vince MP (Labour and Co-operative, Harlow) spoke about his mother’s experience of living with anorexia, which began in her teenage years after experiencing bullying.

Wera Hobhouse MP (Liberal Democrat, Bath) also shared that her daughter had experienced an eating disorder. She described the fear and uncertainty she faced as a parent, reinforcing the need for compassionate, timely, and accessible treatment for all those affected.

Responding on behalf of the Government, the Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock MP, acknowledged the seriousness of the situation and reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to improving services:

“One person afflicted by an eating disorder is one too many, so the Government will strain every sinew to combat this profoundly debilitating condition.”

He noted that the number of people seeking treatment has increased significantly since the pandemic and outlined several measures being taken, including:

• A refresh of NHS England’s guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, due later in 2025.
• Expansion of community-based ‘early support hubs’, with £7 million to deliver 10,000 additional mental health interventions.
• National rollout of Young Futures Hubs to provide open-access mental health support.
• A rise in annual funding for children and young people’s eating disorder services to £101 million.
• A commitment to work with the National Medical Examiner, Office for National Statistics (ONS), and Coroners' Society to improve how eating disorder-related deaths are recorded.
• A commitment to follow up on concerns around inappropriate use of BMI as a treatment threshold.

Beat is incredibly proud that our research and campaigning, and the voices of our supporters were reflected so strongly in this debate. We will continue to campaign for urgent improvements to eating disorder services and for the momentum from this discussion to translate into meaningful change.