Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘Anorexia gives me panic attacks - but help is months away’
It takes three years, on average, for someone to recognise they have an eating disorder. Even then, getting treatment isn’t always straightforward, as Ollie Kemp reports...
A teaching assistant who has struggled with anorexia for six years is concerned how long she and others will be made to wait for treatment, after being told the person at the front of the queue had been assessed 11 months ago.
Kirsty Rowe, of Royds Road, South Willesborough, struck up the courage to reach out for support in May after living with the eating disorder since she was 14 years old.
Now 20, she said: “For the past two years it’s got worse, and especially during lockdown it got really bad.
“I would have panic attacks all the time and feel so scared, and it just got to the point where I thought, ‘I can’t carry on doing this.’
“I’ve looked back and realised small things happened in my life that were a sign that I was going to have an eating disorder.
“I would be quite particular with food - I would separate my food from anyone else’s, if someone else had touched my food I wouldn’t go near it, I didn’t like eating in front of people.
“It gets triggered when I realise things around me are out of my control. So when I was 14 I was at a point in my life where there was a lot going on around me that I didn’t know how to deal with emotionally - I couldn’t stop it and couldn’t control it, so I needed something to hold on to.
“If I went to Tesco and had planned my meals, if something I had planned wasn’t available I would get so anxious and have a panic attack - that’s not something that everyone else would do, they would just choose to have something else instead.”
Kirsty, a teaching assistant at a special school in Ashford, explained having to queue up for food during lockdown made her shopping anxiety even worse, which prompted her to reach out and seek help again.
She said: “Standing outside the shop and waiting was just building this anxiety and stress, it was such a traumatic experience for me.”
After finding support through her GP unhelpful in her teen years, Kirsty decided to seek help from the North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) which includes a specialist all-ages eating disorder service in Maidstone.
The NELFT websites states they will aim to offer an appointment to prospective patients within four weeks of applying.
Kirsty was assessed in just a week, but when cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was decided as a treatment plan, she was told she could be left waiting for much longer.
She was not told how many people were in front of her on the waiting list, but a member of staff said the person right at the top had been waiting since last August.
She said: “I didn’t really know what to say to them when they told me.
“It makes me angry - I think it’s ridiculous that you have to wait such a long time to get help for something like this.
“I could have been in the mindset that this is them telling me I’m not sick enough, even though that’s not what they said.
I don’t want other people to feel alone and tosufferlikeIhaveinthe past
“If I was in a bad place that’s how I could have interpreted it, it could have ended completely differently and I could have gone backwards. I’m worried that’s what other people are going to do.”
She added: “I don’t want other people to feel alone and to suffer like I have in the past.”
Kirsty has been able to access private counselling support through her workplace in the meantime, but her worry is for other people having to wait who do not have that option.
She said: “A lot of people don’t have that access, I know there’s GPs but it takes a lot of guts to go to a GP and talk to them about it.”
Kirsty said while she waits she has also taken advantage of chat rooms hosted by eating disorder charity Beat.
The charity has spoken out about the importance of people suffering with eating disorders being given access to treatment as quickly as possible.
Tom Quinn, Beat’s director of external affairs, said: “Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses and there is an urgent need for better service provision for those affected.
“It already takes nearly three years, on average, for someone to realise they have an eating disorder and visit a GP, and a severe lack of services means they are often unable to access the treatment they need.
“The sooner someone gets help for an eating disorder, the better their chances of making a full and sustained recovery, with lower costs to the NHS.
“Whilst we appreciate the additional strain placed on services in recent months due to the pandemic, we believe there is a real need for increased investment to ensure everyone who needs treatment can get it.”
NELFT declined to comment on the current length of waiting times for access to treatment through the trust.
But Brid Johnson, NELFT’s director of operations for Kent, explained all patients underwent a triage straight away to determine the urgency of their need for a clinical assessment.
That is carried out between one and four weeks, depending on the priority level, although in high risk cases a crisis intervention is carried out within four hours.
Ms Johnson said: “After the assessment, our care begins straight away as we allocate all patients with a key worker who provides them with the support they need.
“If a patient requires more comprehensive care or treatment, their key worker will continue working with them and ensure they are fully supported before this begins.”
In a report by health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, published in September, the trust was told it “requires improvement”.
It stated “significant” waiting times were a particular concern for children accessing mental health support.
It read: “Across Kent, there were 4,143 young people at the end of May 2019 who had been waiting more than 16 weeks for treatment following referral.”
NELFT was rated “good” for its effectiveness, responsiveness and care, however.