By Fiona Bromelow, long standing F.E.A.S.T. Volunteer and ATDT Moderator
As the mother of a now 34 year old, I wonder whether there will ever be enough resources to support and help everyone with eating disorders. My new country, Scotland, has a brand new review on eating disorders. It envisions “more equitable, accessible and supportive services for everyone with eating disorders & loved ones, regardless of age, diagnosis, severity or location.” Brilliant– but with emphasis, quite rightly, being put on early intervention, what happens to those who don’t receive early intervention, don’t respond to it, relapse, or develop/reveal an eating disorder later in life? FREED, the latest fashionable, sorry, evidence-based, treatment, is designed for 16-25 year olds with a duration of illness of less than 3 years. I’m sure it DOES work for many and WILL, if rolled out well with adequate resources, lead to full recovery for many, but my daughter has had an eating disorder for two decades. I don’t want to stop any initiatives to help people right at the beginning of their journeys with eating disorders. Early intervention is vital. I just question whether the resources are there for excellence and equity for all.
This is an important challenge Fiona, Early intervention is vital but so is properly resourced eating disorder treatment for all ages, and unfortunately, in the U.K., adult ED services are woefully underfunded and under-resourced. Terrifying when your loved ones are getting closer to 18 and clinicians start calculating whether they are within or outwith the 3 year criteria for the ongoing level of treatment they need.
I must stress that this is a personal knee jerk reaction rather than anything considered or in any way representative of FEAST or anyone else. The Scottish review of Eating Disorders is a large piece of work that is still in progress. You can check the draft out here file:///C:/Users/fbrom/Downloads/scottish-eating-disorder-services-review-summary-recommendations.pdf and there’s still time to comment. I am enormously grateful to all those professionals and people with lived experience working on them. The FREED programme https://freedfromed.co.uk/ while very promising indeed, isn’t being considered for Scotland at present and isn’t mentioned in the Scottish review.
The draft can be checked out here https://www.gov.scot/news/improving-support-for-people-with-an-eating-disorder/
Thank you, Fiona.
I, too, am frustrated by the lack of resources and the determination on the part of the medical/psychiatric community to help those with severe and enduring eating disorders. A friend of my daughter’s asked me today why on earth she is not hospitalized and kept in hospital at her appallingly low weight snd severe malnutrition. The simple answer I am told – and I told him – she doesn’t want to be there and there aren’t enough beds…….