Anorexics feel forced to starve by doctors with ‘hours’ of training

DOCTORS with just a couple of hours’ training in eating disorders are leaving people with anorexia feeling under pressure to get thinner to receive help, experts have warned.

A report by MPS said the NHS was failing those suffering from potentially fatal conditions, with many left waiting for months to receive care.

The select committee highlighted a serious lack of training in medical school, leaving many doctors falsely believing that treatment should only be recommended if a patient is extremely underweight.

Recent research by charities found that in some areas, average waiting times for treatment have reached almost six months, with delays varying by as much as 12-fold across the country.

Sir Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, said patients were being left to die for want of help at the right time. He urged the Government to “adopt a sense of urgency to stop this problem from spiralling”. “My committee found serious failings in NHS care for people with eating disorders,” he said.

“Doctors only receive a couple of hours of training, patients are left waiting for months for care and the NHS doesn’t have accurate data on the number of people suffering from an eating disorder throughout the UK.”

The committee heard evidence that some GPS believed they could not section a patient at risk of death “because they were not suffering from a mental illness”. The committee called for eating disorders to be put on the curriculum, warning that many doctors had almost no training in the subject. Experts also told how GPS had suggested to patients suffering from anorexia that thinner patients were more “deserving” of treatment.

The study by Beat found a postcode lottery in waiting times for treatment. At one eating disorder service, there was an average delay of five and a half months, while another had average waiting times of two weeks. Nationally, the average wait was nine weeks, with almost one in five adults have to wait for more than four months.

Women suffering from eating disorders said they were left feeling under pressure to starve to receive treatment.

Alice said she became suicidal after a seven-month wait for treatment, telling researchers she was left feeling that the only way to receive help was to starve herself further.

Andrew Radford, chief executive of Beat, said: “This research should set alarm bells ringing in the Government and NHS. Eating disorders have among the highest mortality rates of any mental illness, yet people’s chances of recovery are being subjected to a lottery and lives are at risk.”

Mr Radford said that adults with eating disorders were being discriminated against due to their age.

The NHS has set targets to speed up treatment of children and young people with eating disorders, but has not done so for adults.

NHS England has been approached for comment.