Chamber and committees

The National Eating Disorder Network are considering how to take forward the longer term recommendations of the National Review of Eating Disorder Services.

This includes building, implementing and evaluating a public health strategy for Scotland that makes eating disorder prevention everyone's business, including diet and weight loss companies.

More generally, the Scottish Government has funded the development of content pages and videos featuring people with lived experience, clinicians and parents/carers. This includes working with NHS inform to create a digital page to support positive body image, and to develop a self-help guide for binge eating behaviours which has guidance gathered from the Lived Experience Panel, that we fund eating disorder charity Beat to deliver.

The Scottish Government provides funding to eating disorder charity Beat to deliver the Eating Disorder Lived Experience Panel, a key recommendation from the National Review of Eating Disorder Services.

The Panel provide advice and evidence from the perspective of lived experience in order to inform the ongoing delivery of the recommendations of the National Review and support the work of the National Eating Disorder Network.

The Network also has representation from a peer researcher and a carers support worker, alongside those from the Lived Experience Panel.

The Scottish Government’s National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders in Scotland is underpinned by principles and values aligned with quality healthcare provision, including patient safety.

Everyone in Scotland has the right to safe, high-quality healthcare. The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that NHS services deliver for patients and uphold the highest standards of care.

The Mental Health Safe Delivery of Care inspection programme was introduced in 2025 to strengthen scrutiny and drive improvement in inpatient mental health services.

We expect NHS Boards to fully implement the requirements and recommendations set out in these inspections. These regular, unannounced inspections focus on leadership, culture, governance, and the safety of care environments, providing an additional level of assurance alongside local clinical governance and the Mental Welfare Commission’s regular visits.

Further to this, NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Mental Welfare Commission have carried out a series of joint inspections to all three adolescent inpatient units in Scotland, as well as the National Child Inpatient Unit. HIS and the commission will produce a joint report this year which will include national recommendations to ensure the future quality and safety of our CAMHS inpatient units. We will take all recommendations very seriously for how we can improve the scrutiny of our CAMHS facilities.

The Scottish Government has also been working with NES to produce further training resources for staff delivering care and treatment to children, young people and adults with eating disorders.

We remain committed to improving eating disorder services in Scotland and are continuing to deliver the recommendations from the National Review of Eating Disorder Services in 2021, including publication of the National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders in Scotland in November 2024.

The specification aims to ensure that everyone has access to a high-quality standard of service regardless of what stage they are in their recovery and is for care across all stages of treatment, from primary care to specialist inpatient care.

We have established the National Eating Disorder Network, to support implementation of the Specification across NHS Boards and deliver on the remaining long-term recommendations from the Review.

We continue to fund eating disorder charity Beat to provide a range of support services, such as their dedicated helpline support and delivering peer support services.

The Scottish Government has also been working with NES to produce training resources for staff delivering care and treatment to children, young people and adults with eating disorders.

The Scottish Government has been working with NHS Education Scotland (NES) to develop new Eating Disorder content on Turas. The updated platform will act as a multi-agency resource, structured by age, context and practice type. This will link to guidance, training and evidence-based resources. Accessibility and intellectual property requirements are being built in, and navigation will be more user-friendly than the current structure.

The Scottish Government understands that transitions between children’s to adult services can be difficult for some young people, particularly those who are being treated for eating disorders. We know that these transitions can be stressful, and it is important that a robust plan is in place for young people.

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Service Specification, published by the Scottish Government in February 2020, sets out an expectation that the Scottish Government's Transition Care Planning Guidance is implemented, and that CAMHS will have protocols in place to ensure that transitions between CAMHS and other services are robust. It recommends that, wherever possible, services work together with the child or young person and their family to plan in advance for transition, which is especially critical in the transfer from CAMHS to adult mental health services and primary care.

Transition Care Plan (TCP) templates, guidance and protocols are the responsibility of individual Health Boards as part of their own management and strategic plans, and we continue to work closely with Boards to ensure they are reviewing their work in this space, as well as identifying areas of improvement to ensure that all young people receive a transition in line with their needs.

The Scottish Government also published The National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders in Scotland in November 2024. Outcome six of the specification describes the standards for transitions of care and treatment for individuals with an eating disorder to support safe and coherent care.

The National Eating Disorder Network are considering how to take forward the longer term recommendations of the National Review of Eating Disorder Services.

This includes building, implementing and evaluating a public health strategy for Scotland that makes eating disorder prevention everyone's business, including supermarkets, restaurants and food companies.

Following a commitment made in our Out Of Home Action Plan, the Scottish Government ran a public consultation in 2023 on proposals to introduce mandatory calorie labelling at point of choice in Out Of Home settings such as restaurants and cafés.

The consultation raised the issue of eating disorders and was cited by the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, in May 2023 as a key reason for pausing these proposals pending further research into the impact that these proposals would have on people with lived experience of eating disorders. The Scottish Government has since continued to raise the issue of eating disorders in its ongoing engagement with food industry on the issue of mandating calorie labelling.

The Scottish Government asked NHS Boards in May 2025 to complete a self-assessment tool, scoring their delivery and implementation of the National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders across CAMHS and adult services.

The responses provided further information on data collection and reporting, and we are working with Boards to understand how best to support them in this area.

As part of the implementation of the recommendations from the National Review of Eating Disorder Services in Scotland, the Scottish Government established an Eating Disorder National Network in 2024 to take forward the medium and long term recommendations.

Membership of the network is comprised of senior representatives from key stakeholder organisations, including national health services, third sector, and lived experience representation.

Members share the network’s work, progress and good practice within their own professional fields and networks, acting as a voice for the network as well as a channel for feeding back the views of their profession.

The Scottish Government also continues to work with partners in hosting regular webinars for clinicians, carers and people with lived experience from across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has funded the development of content pages and videos featuring people with lived experience, clinicians and parents/carers. The majority of these are now available on NHS inform with links below.

Over the last 3 months the eating disorder pages have collectively been viewed over 23,200 times. By far the most popular page in the Eating Disorders section is the Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) page with 5,326 views in December.

Information pages:

• Eating disorders | NHS inform
• Anorexia nervosa | NHS inform
• Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) | NHS inform
• Binge eating disorder | NHS inform
• Bulimia nervosa | NHS inform
• How to support someone with an eating disorder | NHS inform
• Eating disorder resources | NHS inform
• Looking after yourself while supporting someone with an eating disorder | NHS inform
• Eating disorders before, during and after pregnancy | NHS inform

Videos:

• How to support someone with an eating disorder | NHS inform
• Cameron's story | NHS inform
• Abigail's story | NHS inform

We also continue to fund eating disorder charity Beat, who provide a range of support options to families and carers, including support groups.