A teenager is calling for urgent improvements to eating disorder services in Wales after she was forced to travel to England to receive the lifesaving care she needed. Georgia Taylor, from Bridgend, began suffering with anxiety and panic attacks at the age of 14 and was put on a waiting list to access child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
But after waiting a year to be seen she developed an eating disorder as a coping mechanism which led to a dramatic drop in her weight. After she finally got the consistent help she needed from CAMHS at the age of 18 she had to transfer to adult services where she said she got "lost in the system".
In November 2021 she admitted reaching "crisis point" and needed a spell on a psychiatric ward at Princess of Wales Hospital where her health declined to such an extent that her organs began to shut down. The lack of specialist eating disorder care at the hospital, and elsewhere in Wales, meant she was transferred to an inpatient unit near Swindon in January where her journey of recovery began.
