To support primary care staff working with people with an eating disorder, NHS England has worked in partnership with the charity Beat to develop a Community of Practice for the GP, primary care and nursing workforce.
The programme specifically aims to support the GP, primary care and nursing workforce to better understand and support people with eating disorders. Sessions are designed to follow on from the Beat and NHSE Eating disorders e-Learning and were developed to help clinicians feel confident in identifying and treating eating disorders in people.
A Beat eating disorder clinician will present a 10-minute presentation on a related topic. Following this, clinicians will have the opportunity to:
- Discuss the topic in more depth
- Ask questions
- Share knowledge
- Consolidate learnings
- Consider the application of knowledge to practice
There will be 38 x 60-minute sessions, twice monthly for 19 months. Each session takes place on the first Tuesday and Thursday of each month, grouped for the nursing workforce and GP & primary care workforce. The sessions will take place 12pm – 1pm and include additional learning resources for those looking to increase their knowledge about eating disorders.
In time, uptake of the Community of Practice will lead to increased competence and confidence within the nursing, GP & primary care workforce, resulting in improved early identification and referral of eating disorders, leading to early treatment, faster and more sustained recovery and fewer avoidable deaths.
To access the sessions, visit the Beat webpage: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/training-events/find-training/community-of-practice-sessions/
NHSE has also commissioned an eating disorders learning hub (https://mindedhub.org.uk/feeding-or-eating-disorders), including top-tips sheets where you can find key trusted evidence-based learning curated and approved by MindEd’s expert panel.