Alternative community-based models of care for young people with anorexia nervosa: the CostED national surveillance study.

Alternative community-based models of care for young people with anorexia nervosa: the CostED national surveillance study.
Health Serv Deliv Res 2019;7(37) October 2019

• Analysis of the cost of providing services to 298 young people with anorexia nervosa who are being treated in two different types of community services: specialist eating disorders services and general child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).  
• Young people in specialist services were found to be more severely ill than those in CAMHS when they were first diagnosed. Despite this, care for young people in specialist services cost about the same as care for those who were diagnosed in general CAMHS, and their outcomes after 1 year were also similar. 
• The authors conclude that specialist services may be better value for money than general CAMHS, but it did not show that providing more specialist services would save money for the NHS.