‘I worry my young patients will die’: UK’s eating disorder services not fit, say GPs

Urgent help is so patchy that 60% of GPs surveyed fear that sufferers will come to harm before they get it, the charity found. Photograph: Brian Jackson/Alamy

Young people with eating disorders are coming to harm and ending up in A&E because they are being denied care and forced to endure long waits for treatment, GPs have revealed.

NHS eating disorders services are so overwhelmed by a post-Covid surge in problems such as anorexia that they are telling under-19s to rely on charities, their parents or self-help instead.