Eating disorders '˜four times more' in rural Yorkshire than in city

File pic: A new service is being launched for youngsters with eating disorders.

Currently there are around 45 cases of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia in the East Riding compared to just 10 in Hull.

Hull and East Riding Clinical Commissioning Groups are investing more than £300,000 in the service for young people aged eight to 18, as part of a national roll-out.

Service Manager for East Riding Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Nikki Titchener said the vast majority of referrals came from the west of the East Riding and from “high-achieving, professional backgrounds.”

The youngest was just eight and some were so poorly that they had to be sent straight to hospital. Around one in ten were boys.

She said: “It’s an East Riding rather than a Hull problem.

“It is the middle-class, higher-achieving families, which is where all the pressure tends to be. It is right down the side of the East Riding patch, starting from Pocklington, Market Weighton and the West Hull villages going up to the York boundary.

“Our caseload is about 45 open cases compared to 10 from Hull. Our youngest was eight-years-old. We seem to have quite a high incidence also of the 17.5 (age) bracket.”

Ms Titchener said most of the referrals were “urgent” and some require hospital admission.

“Sadly with a lot of people, you can tell how serious it is, they are very poorly. We have had incidences where nurses look at them, take their blood pressure and send them straight off to Hull Royal Infirmary.”

She said in the East Riding it was an issue that “is not being picked up particularly early; they are incredibly good at hiding it. In Hull it seems to be picked up more quickly.”

The new service which will be based at Beverley Health Centre will cover both Hull and the East Riding, and health and education professionals and members of the public can find out more at a drop-in next Wednesday at Beverley Racecourse.

Ms Titchener said there had been a “massive” increase in cases four or five years ago and it had stayed at the same rate since then.

She was worried they would face a “deluge” when they opened, but hopes GPs, school nurses and teachers will come to the drop-in, as they are in the best place to spot problems.

She said: “The prognosis is so much better the sooner you can treat it. I think we have quite a good success rate.

“Some are in the service for up to two years, but the quicker you get to see them the less time they have to be in the service.

“It is quite a destructive condition, not just for young people but the families around them.

“You get families that get quite angry or bury their heads in the sand. The quicker you can get the families into action the better.”

A new multi-disciplinary team includes a psychologist, psychiatrist and dietician as well as a team of nurses who support both the service users and their families.

People can seek a referral through their GP or they can self-refer by completing an online referral form or contacting the service directly.

The service, run by Humber NHS Foundation Trust faces a tight turn-round time of five working days for urgent cases and 21 for routine cases.

The drop in runs from 10.30am until 5pm.