In September 2013, the Mental Health Drug and Alcohol Office of the NSW Ministry of Health, launched the NSW Service Plan for People with Eating Disorders 2013–2018. This landmark document positioned eating disorders as core business for the NSW Health care system. The NSW Government has provided funding to overhaul service delivery to improve access to treatment, support innovation and improvement in care for people with eating disorders, no matter where they live in the state.
In response to the evidence, one of the key tasks of the Service Plan was to ensure the opening of hospital pathways for treatment of medical compromise in eating disorder presentations, and the training of community staff to deliver evidence-based treatments to people upon discharge from hospital, inclusive of Maudsley Family Based Treatment (MFBT) for children and adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN).
Preliminary analysis of the Statewide data suggested that while hospital admissions for children and adolescents with eating disorders is occurring in health districts, there is variation in the community follow-up post discharge from hospital. While the Service Plan is working towards improving pathways to evidence based care for people with eating disorders, it is unclear at this stage the extent to which this pathway is utilised in NSW local health districts.
With the first year of research funded by the Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF; 2017) and mainstream providing an extra two years (2018-2019), this project will examine the extent to which the implementation of this evidence based pathway has been achieved in NSW local health districts over time and produce data and recommendations to assist further development of these pathways for this life-threatening illness.
Partners/Organisations: Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF)
Publications:
Li, A., Cunich, M., Miskovic-Wheatley, J., Maloney, D., Madden, S., Wallis, A., & Maguire, S. Factors related to length of stay, referral on discharge and hospital readmission for children and adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Int J Eat Disord. 2021 Mar;54(3):409-421. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.23399.