Who can refer to our service and what are the referral criteria?
General Practitioner (GP), Community Mental Health Team, or other medical or mental health professionals can refer you to our service. Referrals are accepted for all eating disorder diagnoses including:
- ARFID – Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
- AN- Anorexia nervosa
- BED – Binge eating disorder
- BN – Bulimia nervosa
- OSFED – Other specified feeding and eating disorder
We ask your referrer to arrange for us to have an up to date weight and height and blood tests to check your urea and electrolytes and full blood count. We know that eating disorders affect people’s physical health as well as their mental health and so we want to pick up any physical problems early. We also use this information to help us prioritise who may be at the highest risk. We know that eating disorders may change in between the time you are referred and when you start treatment. If this does happen and you are worried that things are becoming much more difficult, then you can ask your GP to review things and they can get in touch with us.
We aim to offer people who are referred a screening assessment appointment within 6-8 weeks and then there is usually a further wait time to start treatment.
Some people are referred Urgently to us and they then may start treatment within 8 weeks. If someone is at very high risk because of their eating disorder, then we aim to process the referral within 48 hours (Monday- Friday) and an initial assessment and stabilisation plan can be arranged within 7 days.
The urgency of referrals is based upon assessing acute medical risk factors alongside an understanding of how a range of additional difficulties may increase the risk:
- If you have a very low Body Mass Index (BMI)
- If you are already low weight and are continuing to lose weight rapidly
- If you are currently experiencing any serious medical symptoms (e.g. loss of consciousness, marked muscle weakness, blood or ECG abnormalities)
- If you have an existing medical condition (e.g. insulin dependent diabetes, liver or heart conditions)
- If you have a significant alcohol or drug misuse problem
- If you are pregnant
- If you have lost more than 20% of your body weight within 6 months.
Help from General Adult Services:
We know that eating disorders can sometimes be frightening and distressing and that people can need urgent help because of how they are feeling about themselves. If you are struggling with feeling hopeless or suicidal or you are coping with a crisis in your life, then you would need to seek help with this from general mental health services. We may also recommend after your assessment with us that we need to work with other adult services to ensure that you receive the right care.
