Guided Self Help for Eating Disorders

Health Education England exists to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement to the patients and public of England by ensuring that the workforce of today and tomorrow has the right numbers, skills, values, and behaviours, at the right time and in the right place. We believe that the most important resource the NHS has is its people. Without a skilled workforce there is no NHS.

Eating disorders is a significant and increasing part of the mental health sector, one that requires a multi-faceted approach to education and training opportunities to support healthcare professionals working in this field. In recent years, there have been fundamental changes in the way we understand eating disorders; both as a society and in respect therapeutic interventions. It has been recognised that the skills to deliver high quality eating disorders treatment are required across many specialties, particularly general practice, paediatrics, and acute medicine. Upskilling the workforce is central to the strategy to improve access to a range of psychological therapies. HEE is currently working closely with NHSE/I to ensure the workforce has the competencies to deliver a range of evidence based psychological therapies to increase capacity, capability, and client choice across the system, and that includes eating disorder services. The aim is to ensure mental health services across England have access to high quality training to ensure the capacity and capability necessary to deliver evidence-based treatments. Based on evidence of effectiveness, NICE (2017) recommends guided self-help approaches based on cognitive-behavioural therapy (GSH-CBT-ED) as first stage interventions for such patients, with onward referral to individual therapy if the patient is not responsive to GSH-CBT-ED within sixteen weeks.

To ensure that Guided Self Help (GSH) is delivered to a high standard, reaches more service-users, and relieves pressures on the professional workforce, we need to develop a large cadre of Guided Self Help (GSH) facilitators working with clients with early-stage non-below weight eating disorders. A national curriculum has now been agreed for the training course, based on the best available evidence, through an expert reference group comprising expert practitioners, lived experience representatives, NHSE/I/ and HEE.

Further details and the tender documents can be download from the link below: https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome