Eating disorders: Cambridgeshire project delay shows 'tsunami' of sufferers

Inquests were held into the deaths of Maddy Wallace, Amanda Bowles, Averil Hart, Emma Brown and Maria Jakes

The father of a woman who died with anorexia said delays to a key eating disorder project showed staff were dealing with a "tsunami" of patients.

A coroner said in March there remained "a risk of avoidable future deaths" after five inquests in Cambridgeshire.

But the start of a new county project to improve care has been "detrimentally impacted by Covid-19" with an increase in referrals and delayed until October.

Simon Brown, whose daughter Emma died, called demand on the system "immense".

Sean Horstead, the assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, raised his concerns about the treatment of anorexia following the inquests of five women who died.

• How anorexia took the lives of five women

He wrote a prevention of future deaths report following the conclusion of the final inquest, which was into the death of Averil Hart, 19, of Newton, Suffolk, and found systemic failures and neglect.

Coroner Sean Horstead heard the inquests into each of the five women's deaths

Mr Brown, whose daughter Emma, 27, from Cambourne, died in 2018, was invited on to the steering group for an "exemplar project", which he said was a "recognition of a need to change".

However, a Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) board meeting earlier this month heard it was being delayed because the coronavirus pandemic had led to an "increase in referrals, acuity and the need to pause transformation work to focus on managing demand, restoration and recovery".

Mr Brown said: "The system was struggling to support the level and complexity of people suffering from eating disorders before Covid.

"This is a really complicated, deadly, vicious, vile illness that's very hard to treat and the system was failing, frankly.

"The exemplar launched as a serious and committed intent to find a better way. The impact of the delay is delaying the employing of that 'better way', which means that there will be more suffering as a consequence."

Simon Brown previously said it was almost "indescribable" seeing his daughter get sicker and sicker

He said referrals to an eating disorder charity he was part of were "500% up on what they were a year ago, and it keeps going up".

"I can see the need to delay [the exemplar project] because frankly all hands are on deck trying to cope with the tsunami of people who are suffering.

"Not only are the numbers up but people are more ill when they contact us than they were previously.

"We're seeing more people and they're in a worse state when they present and the wards and beds are already full, so Covid has added a catastrophe to a system that was already in crisis."

If you are affected by any of the issues in this story, you can find support at BBC Action Line.

He said the response "shouldn't be to criticise or challenge the dedication and work of people trying to provide this exemplar... but the reality is the pressure on the system is immense and was already immense".

Simon Brown described his daughter Emma as a "force of nature"

A spokeswoman for the CCG, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), said they had seen an increasing demand for eating disorder services, adding: "Our teams have continued to work incredibly hard to care for patients as we build on the improvements already made to the services we commission."

She said they had started a GP advice line in the county, employed a specialist GP to support practices and worked with eating disorder sufferers to produce support resources.

The spokeswoman said they were "fully committed" to improving existing services and planned to launch the new Eating Disorders Exemplar Project later this year.

With increased financial backing, the project will look to improve patient support and quality of life, plus ensure "medical monitoring of eating disorder patients is consistent across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough", she added.