Treatments

The specialist eating disorder service aims to provide treatment consistent with NICE guidelines for eating disorders to improve psychological, physical and social functioning of the young person.

For children and young people there is evidence that a family- based approach is effective. This is achieved within the context of a multidisciplinary ((MDT) team of health professionals.

Treatment Approaches

If an eating disorder treatment is required, treatment may involve different therapeutic approaches, depending on the young person’s need and what family support they have available. All treatment usually involves increasing knowledge and understanding of the eating disorder with the young person alongside regular physical health monitoring to ensure physical safety.

This may involve some or a combination of amongst others:

Outpatient Treatments

Medical monitoring

Looking after your physical health is an important part of your treatment when you’re experiencing an eating disorder. Eating difficulties can affect how your body works, and these physical health checks help keep you safe while you focus on getting better. Physical health checks are important alongside your psychological and nutritional support, helping us give you safe, well‑rounded care throughout your recovery.

Regular Physical Health Checks

As part of your care plan if appropriate, we may regularly check your weight, blood pressure and pulse, and make sure your general physical health is OK. These are carried out by the medical or nursing staff in our team. Although, non-medical clinicians, like psychologists, may need to record your weight at times.

Additional Checks

You may also be asked to have blood tests with your GP or to go to the hospital for a ECG, which helps us see how your heart is working. These give us important information about how your body is coping and allow us to act quickly if you need extra medical support and we may direct you to be supported by the local hospital or paediatric outpatients.

Medication

Medication is not routinely used in the treatment of eating disorders. However, if the young person is also very low in mood or very anxious, medication may be considered.

Psychological treatment approaches

Family Therapy

Family Therapy is the most common treatment we use in our service and is often used early in the treatment journey. The aim is to explore the impact of the eating disorder on the whole family and identify how everyone in the family can support the young person in re-establishing a normal eating pattern.

Individual psychological therapy

This is usually specialist Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for eating disorders (CBT-ED) although other individual therapies are sometimes offered depending on individual need.

The service can also offer individual psychological therapy for other mental health difficulties that co-occur alongside an eating disorder and would otherwise impact access to treatment, for instance, anxiety, depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Multi Family Therapy (MFT)

Multi Family Therapy (MFT) is a four-day intensive course for families with one-day follow-up and designed to support families to make changes to assist in recovery.

Parents skills workshop

We run an online Parent Skills workshop each month for new families accepted into the service, facilitated by clinicians in the team which aims to provide an opportunity to meet other parents, share experiences and gain an understanding of eating disorders and how parents can support the young person.

Other Treatments

Dietetic support

Some young people may benefit from specialist support around nutrition and eating alongside an evidenced based treatment. This is usually if they are specific medical or dietetic needs that co-occur alongside the eating disorder.

More focused and targeted treatment

Some young people with an eating disorder may require a higher level of support to help them get better. If a higher level of support is needed, there are several options that can be discussed with your team at the time. This includes more frequent and targeted support from our team, Hospital at Home and in some circumstances an inpatient admission to hospital.

The Hospital at Home and inpatient professionals can provide intensive and home-based support, for example around mealtimes. Sometimes, this can be a way of avoiding a hospital admission. The need for this level of support will always be discussed with the family in advance.

Key Worker

Each young person accepted for support from our team has a named key worker who will coordinate the care.

How long will treatment be?

This will usually depend on the severity and history of the eating disorder. Normally we would expect treatment to last nine months to a year (around 20 sessions), but it may take longer to achieve a full recovery.

Generally, treatment will be more frequent and focused at the start and appointments will become further apart as recovery progresses.

Page last reviewed: 17 August, 2026