If I’d been given palliative care when I had an eating disorder, I would not be here today | Dorothy Dunn

My own recovery from the hopeless' stage of this condition shows we must never give up on patients

The leaking of NHS documents last week describing how patients with longstanding eating disorders could be offered palliative care under new guidelines in the east of England was shocking but not unexpected. The very fact that these severe and enduring eating disorder (Seed) treatment pathways exist at all is scandalous.

A running joke among service users is that the Seed treatment pathway is where you go when services have given up on you. Outpatient services seemingly don't know how to treat these patients other than to manage terminal decline. But inpatient services don't, either - the fact that palliative options are even on the table shows that.

Dorothy Dunn is a freelance journalist

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