Chamber and committees

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 review of responses highlighted encouraging progress and examples of innovation across a number of Boards, providing a better understanding of the progress Boards are making in implementing the Specification and also highlighting areas where support from Scottish Government would be most helpful.

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.

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.

The National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders in Scotland, published by the Scottish Government in 2024, makes clear that discharge from eating disorder services should be planned, collaborative, and based on individualised goals of treatment.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS Boards in implementing the Specification, and the recent self-assessment tools that were completed by Boards have highlighted good practice that can be shared, as well as areas where Scottish Government support is needed.

The National Specification for the Care and Treatment of Eating Disorders in Scotland aims to reduce variability in services while acknowledging the diverse population needs of Scotland and the need for responsive implementation aligned with local models of delivery and partnership working.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS Boards in implementing the Specification, and the recent self-assessment tools that were completed by Boards have highlighted areas where Scottish Government support is needed.

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

The panel brings together individuals of different ages and experiences of eating disorders. Members provide advice and evidence from the perspective of lived experience in order to inform the ongoing delivery of the recommendations of the Review and support the work of the National Eating Disorder Network.

The Eating Disorder Network is supporting the Scottish Government on how best to implement Recommendation 15 of the National Review, which asked the Scottish Government to consider funding eating disorders research through NHS Research Scotland.

The Network has hosted a series of research into practice seminars including the National Eating Disorders Specification – Implementation and Challenges hosted in partnership with eating disorder charity Beat.

400 clinicians, carers and people with lived experience from across Scotland signed up for the webinar, focused on steps that services can take to implement the National Specification. The sessions included guidance on routine outcome monitoring using the core dataset from the ED Clinical Research Network, how to engage meaningfully with those with lived experience, and examples and learning from successful all age services with self-referral pathways.

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.

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.