Specialist services for people with eating disorders are to be developed in West Sussex over the next three years in the face of a growing problem.
Sue Morris, West Sussex executive director of the Sussex Partnership Trust – responsible for mental health services – told a meeting at County Hall, Chichester the issue was a 'big challenge'.
This was because referrals of people with eating diso
rders were 'coming in thick and fast'.
Answering questions from members of the county council's health overview and scrutiny committee, Ms Morris said this was about providing primary care skills to support people, and also about having somewhere to refer them on to.
"We don't want someone with bulimia to have to go to London," she declared.
Development of specialist services was also planned for people with early onset dementia, autistic spectrum disorder, personality disorder, or needing peri-natal mental healthcare.
"The development of these services will necessitate some of the trust's existing community teams merging to form larger teams, as has already commenced in Mid Sussex," she added, in a report.
Ms Morris was also questioned about problems faced by West Sussex hospital accident and emergency departments over people with mental health problems.
Susan Pyper, chairman of the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, which runs St Richard's Hospital, said there was a need to improve liaison between A&E and mental health services.
"This is an area we cannot afford to neglect any longer," she added. "It is one that is assuming a more and more problematical day-to-day issue."
Ms Morris said a review would be undertaken of the current resources available.
"We shall be looking at practices in other trusts, to see what resources they have," she told the committee.
One aspect was people in A&E who had deliberately harmed themselves.
In these cases, a lot of input was being provided through crisis resolution services.
It was necessary to be clear about what should be provided within a hospital setting.
What they would look at was where people were admitted to hospital who had mental health issues which were preventing them from being treated or discharged.
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The full article contains 431 words and appears in OS-Chichester Observer newspaper.
