Step Care (specialised adult eating disorder service)
Who are we?
Step Care is a specialised adult eating disorder service. The team are part of the Thames Valley Adult Eating Disorder HOPE Provider Collaborative.
What do we do?
We work together with local adult community eating disorder teams and specialist eating disorder units across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bath and North East Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.
We make sure that individual care plans are complete and manage risks.
Our goal is to ensure continuity of care between outpatient and inpatient services. We do this by providing an intensive, time limited, virtual eating disorder treatment service.
How do we work?
We use a special model called stepped care. This includes evidence-based enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT-E) alongside additional meal support, carer contact support, food shopping support, and dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) skills training.
All treatments are delivered online, through a mixture of individual sessions and structured patient groups.
We are open Monday to Friday between 8am and 5pm, excluding bank holidays.
During Step Care treatment, patients are supported by a multidisciplinary team. This can include a nursing team, psychology team, dietetic team, an art therapist, and an administrator. This team work together to provide complete care for patients, focusing on both mental and physical recovery.
Who can access our service?
Step Care is available for people aged 18 or older. They need specialised care and have been referred to HOPE Single Point of Access (SPA).
To start treatment with Step Care, patients need to:
- agree to participate in the treatment,
- be able to eat and drink through the mouth,
- be able to ensure personal safety, and
- agree to community-based physical health monitoring e.g. weight measurements, blood pressure.
What are the services?
We have three service pathways available for patients. The leaflets below provide further details.
Non-urgent advice: Questions?
The Step Care team welcome any questions that you have about the service.
You can email us on AEDStepCare@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk
For referrals, which are made via the HOPE Single Point of Access, you can email hopespa@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk
Note that referrals can only be made by a patient’s Adult Community Eating Disorder Service (ACEDS) professional.
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