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<p>For adults with an eating disorder, the NHS Long Term Plan has made a renewed commitment
that mental health services will grow faster than the overall National Health Service
budget, with additional investment worth at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24.
This includes investment in community-based adult eating disorder services as part
of the Plan’s commitment to transform community-based care for adults with mental
health needs.</p><p> </p><p>The NHS is also investing over £30 million in services
every year to meet and maintain ambitious waiting targets, with 70 community treatment
teams now covering the whole of the country so that more children and young people
can get eating disorder care closer to home and out of hospital.</p><p> </p><p>As
part of a broader programme of work on community based mental health care for adults,
alongside work to explore the effectiveness of different approaches to integrated
delivery with primary care and starting this summer, NHS England will test four-week
waiting times for adult and older adult community mental health teams with selected
local areas to build understanding of how best to introduce ambitious but achievable
improvements to access, quality of care and outcomes. In doing so, NHS England will
also consider the interfaces with specialist community mental health services, particularly
where there is an existing evidence base for rapid direct access (such as eating disorders).</p><p>
</p><p>Learning from these test sites about the required inputs to increase access
and reduce waits will inform future policy discussions about a suitable timeframe
for implementation of any future access and waiting time targets, for core community
provision or for specialist provision.</p>
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