How Long Is the NHS Eating Disorder Waiting List in 2026?
What families in Kent need to know, and what to do if you cannot safely wait
If you have tried to get help through the NHS for an eating disorder, you probably already know what I am about to say. The wait is long. Sometimes shockingly long. And eating disorders are among the mental illnesses associated with the highest mortality rates, which means that for many families, this is not just frustrating. It is genuinely dangerous.
I am Becky Stone. I am a counsellor based in Canterbury, Kent, specialising in eating disorders, disordered eating, body image and emotional wellbeing. I work with adults, teenagers and the families that love them. And I want to give you an honest account of what the NHS waiting list looks like right now, what it means for the people I see every week, and what your options are if you cannot wait.
What the data actually shows
The headline figure is stark. According to research by Beat, the UK’s leading eating disorder charity, adults wait an average of 256 weeks from when symptoms first appear to when treatment begins. That is nearly five years. By the time treatment starts, the illness is often deeply entrenched.
That figure breaks down like this. Around 96 weeks pass before a person even recognises they have a problem. Another 39 weeks before they seek help. Then 15 weeks to get a GP referral. Ten weeks between referral and assessment. Eleven more weeks between assessment and the start of treatment. And at almost every stage, people are waiting in silence with very little support or information.
Nearly one in three adults do not start treatment until more than three years after their symptoms first emerge. Men typically wait twice as long as women for a GP referral: 28 weeks compared to 10. And a quarter of adults aged 19 and over are referred not to specialist eating disorder services, but to general mental health provision that is simply not equipped to help them.
For children and young people, the picture is slightly different, but still failing too many families. NHS England set a target that 95% of urgent cases should begin treatment within one week, and 95% of routine cases within four weeks. The most recent figures available show 79% of urgent cases and 83% of routine cases meeting those timelines. Neither target is being met. These figures are updated quarterly by NHS England, so the current position may have shifted, but the broader picture has been consistent for several years. There are still nearly 4,000 young people waiting for routine eating disorder support in England.
In Kent and Medway, the All-Age Eating Disorder Service takes referrals for anyone aged 8 and over. There are two sites: one in Maidstone and one at George Turle House in Canterbury. The staff there are dedicated and the service is evidence-based. But it is under real pressure, and the waits are real.
What I see when someone arrives after years of waiting
I want to be careful here, because experiences of NHS services are genuinely mixed. Some people I see have had a positive experience of the system before coming to me. Others have not. And I think it is important to hold that complexity rather than paint a simple picture.
What I can tell you is what I notice in the room.
People who have been through NHS assessment, been on a waiting list, or been in and out of services over a period of years tend to arrive with a particular kind of guardedness. There is often an anxiety underneath the surface that sounds something like: Is this just going to be the same? Will she stop working with me when I stop being in crisis? Am I going to be let down again?
That is always the starting point for me. I need to hear their story. I need to understand what has and has not worked, what has felt safe and what has not, what their relationship with services looks like. The guarded ones are often the people who have learned, through experience, to protect themselves from another disappointment. And so we start there.
The way I work is probably a bit different from what most people expect.
I often describe it using the Nanny McPhee approach, if you have seen the film, you will know what I mean. We start with weekly sessions because that consistency matters, particularly in the early stages. As things settle and as my client builds confidence in managing their own recovery, we move to fortnightly sessions, and then monthly for accountability. It is not a sudden ending. It is a gradual stepping back, which is part of the work itself.
Relapse is something I am honest about with every single client from the very beginning. Some people wobble after we have finished. When that happens, they come back. The underpinning work is already done. We steady things and they go back to their lives. Some people do not relapse at all. But in either case, knowing I am there for accountability seems to make a real difference.
In those first few sessions, I am listening hard. I am not just listening to what someone tells me about their eating. I am listening for the hot words. The phrases they keep coming back to. The things that sit underneath the illness, because eating disorders are rarely just about food. They are about an accumulation of things: self-worth, control, anxiety, perfectionism, family systems, identity, transition. My job in those early sessions is to start getting the outside edges of the jigsaw puzzle in place. Once the frame is there, we can begin to fill in the middle.
What I wish GPs understood
I do not say this to criticise GPs. They are overworked, undertrained in this area, and working within a system that does not give them the tools they need. But one issue that sometimes arises is an understandable reliance on BMI, because it is one of the most accessible tools available in primary care. The difficulty is that BMI alone cannot determine the seriousness of an eating disorder.
When someone’s BMI sits within a “normal” range, it can look, on paper, as though they are not seriously unwell. But an eating disorder is not visible on a BMI chart. Someone can have lost a significant amount of weight rapidly and still fall within the reference ranges. What the chart does not show is what is happening with their bloods, their electrolytes, their heart function, their bone density. It does not show the level of cognitive distortion. It does not show that someone has not eaten a proper meal in six months.
If someone is in genuine emotional distress around food, something needs to be put in place early. Not when the situation has deteriorated into crisis. Not when the NHS is the only option left because every other door has been left too late. Early intervention works. The research is consistent on this. The longer an eating disorder goes untreated, the harder it is to treat.
For parents: what to do when you are waiting for CAMHS
Parents ring me while their child is on the CAMHS waiting list. More often than I think people expect. And the call is almost always some version of the same thing: I am scared, I do not know what to do, and I am being told to wait.
I understand why families see CAMHS as the answer. It is the NHS. It is specialist. It feels like it should be the place that fixes things. And for some families, in the right circumstances, it is exactly what is needed.
But here is what I say to parents who are waiting: sitting still and hoping the CAMHS appointment arrives before things get worse is not your only option, and it may not be the best one.
Early intervention is one of the strongest predictors of recovery. The quicker your child is seen, the better the outcomes. While you are waiting for the NHS, there is often a great deal that can be done. On the therapeutic side, I can work with your child on the thought patterns, behaviours and emotional underpinnings that are driving the eating disorder. On the nutrition side, where appropriate I work alongside specialist dietitians. One colleague I collaborate with regularly is Jenny, and when therapy and nutrition are combined, the results are consistently stronger than either can achieve in isolation. Throughout, your child’s GP remains responsible for medical monitoring, including bloods, ECGs and physical health checks. We work alongside that, not instead of it. We are not replacing CAMHS. We are making sure that by the time that appointment comes, your child is in a better position to engage with it.
Any collaboration I have with other professionals is conducted within appropriate data protection frameworks, always with the client’s knowledge and consent. Roles are kept clear. Communication is professional.
I also want to say something directly to parents about the emotional reality of supporting a child with an eating disorder.
You are not going to get every conversation right. Your child will push back on you. They will say things that are upsetting and untrue. That is the illness talking, not your child. Your job in this period is not to be your child’s friend. It is to be their parent. To hold the line. To be the hope when they cannot find it themselves. That is a hard thing to hold, and you need support too, not just them. You can also read more about support for parents and carers here.
If you feel guilty, I want to be honest with you: this is not your fault. An eating disorder develops from an accumulation of factors. It is never one cause and never one person’s responsibility. Sometimes, in working through their child’s illness, parents discover that food and body image have been complicated for them too. That is worth paying attention to. But guilt does not help your child recover. Being informed, consistent and supported does.
If you are currently waiting for a CAMHS eating disorder appointment in Canterbury or the surrounding Kent area and you are not sure what to do in the meantime, please do not wait until things get worse to reach out. You can book a free 20-minute consultation with me to talk through what is happening and whether specialist support would be helpful right now. There is no obligation and no pressure.
A note on New Maudsley Carers Kent
One of the things I consistently direct families towards, alongside their child’s own support, is New Maudsley Carers Kent (https://newmaudsleycarers-kent.co.uk/). The New Maudsley approach is a family-based model developed specifically for eating disorder recovery. It gives parents and carers practical tools, evidence-based guidance, and the space to understand what is happening in a way that reduces conflict and increases the chance of recovery at home.
New Maudsley Carers Kent offers carer skills workshops, support group meetings, resources and worksheets, and access to recovery coaches and nutritionists. It is based here in Kent and was founded by Jenny Langley, whose own family experience of eating disorder recovery led her to build something genuinely practical and compassionate for other families going through the same thing. Jenny was awarded the Royal College of Psychiatrists Carer Contributor of the Year in 2016 for her work.
I send families to this group because a parent who understands what they are dealing with, and who is not carrying it alone, is one of the most powerful resources their child has. The group is also open to professionals (GPs, school nurses, counsellors and clinicians) who want to better understand eating disorders and how to support the families they work with.
I am proud to be listed as a professional with New Maudsley Carers Kent. It is a network I trust, and being part of it reflects the kind of collaborative, community-rooted approach I believe makes a real difference to families in our area.
You can find out more at newmaudsleycarers-kent.co.uk or call 07887 840470.
Why I specialise in this
People sometimes ask me what drew me to eating disorders specifically. The honest answer is that it is personal.
I was diagnosed with dyslexia and, later, with ADHD. And when I started to understand the way my own thought processes worked, I could see clearly how that way of thinking had fed disordered behaviours around food. I have wondered since whether, if I had understood my neurodiversity earlier, the eating disorder would have happened at all. I genuinely do not know. But what I do know is that low self-esteem sits at the root of so much of this, and that understanding who you are is a significant part of finding a way through.
I could see there was a gap. People needed specialist help, and there was not enough of it.
I started noticing it in my own practice. I had five clients at one point who were all coming to me with eating disorder presentations, and I did not yet have the specialist knowledge to work with them properly. That did not sit right with me ethically. So I completed my specialist eating disorder training with the National Centre for Eating Disorders. Because of my dyslexia, I repeated the course three times. I am genuinely glad I did. Each time, I caught things I had missed. Each time, I came away with a deeper understanding.
I do not get it right every time. Nobody does. But I have built a practice that is bespoke, specialist, and grounded in the reality of how these illnesses actually work.
What recovery can look like
The clients I am most proud of are not the ones who are with me right now. They are the ones who do not need me any more.
They are travelling. Starting university. Getting promoted. Leaving relationships that were not good for them. Building ones that are. They are eating meals with friends without it dominating the whole day. They are living.
The thoughts do not always disappear completely, and I am honest about that from the start. What changes is the relationship with those thoughts. My clients learn to manage without me.
One client in particular has stayed with me. They came to me after eighteen months of serious illness. Through a combination of specialist counselling and nutritional support, they got to a point where they could honestly say they were well. That kind of outcome is why I do this work.
Who comes to me
I work with adults and young people. The majority of my clients are women between 25 and 35, though that is not the whole picture. I see a significant number of teenagers, particularly around two key transitions: GCSEs and the move to university. Both are periods of enormous pressure, change and identity uncertainty, and for a young person who is already struggling, they can be the point at which things tip.
A large number of my clients come by self-referral. They do not go through their GP. They have often reached a point where they know they need help and they want to start without the wait, the forms, the appointments. Word of mouth also brings people to me, and I take that as the highest possible compliment.
What working with me actually feels like
People often arrive not quite knowing what to expect. Some have been in therapy before and found it did not fit. Some have never spoken to anyone professionally about food or their body. Some arrive carrying years of shame and are quietly terrified of being judged.
What I hear most often, after those early sessions, is something like: “I finally feel like someone actually gets it.” You do not need to arrive knowing exactly what is wrong or how to describe it. You do not need to have the right words. My job is to listen well enough that we find them together.
This work can be difficult. It is almost always worth it.
If you are thinking about getting in touch
I want to be clear about one thing: I am not the crisis team. If someone is in immediate medical danger, they need medical support, and I will always say that clearly. Ethical practice means working within my professional guidelines as a BACP-registered counsellor, and part of that means being honest when someone needs a level of care that requires a medical team around them. I have had that conversation, and I will always have it if I need to.
For everyone else: getting in touch starts with an intake form. That is not a barrier. It is how I make sure I have the availability and consistency to give you what you need. Sporadic or uncertain support is not helpful for eating disorder recovery. Consistency is.
You do not need a GP referral to contact me. You can self-refer directly. If you are a parent and you are worried about your child, please do not wait for things to get worse before you pick up the phone. If you are an adult and you have been waiting for NHS support that has not come, or you want to start working now, please get in touch.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long is the NHS waiting list for eating disorders in 2026?
For adults, research by Beat found an average wait of nearly five years from the first emergence of symptoms to the start of treatment. For children and young people, NHS targets require 95% of urgent cases to be seen within one week and 95% of routine cases within four weeks. Currently, around 79% of urgent cases and 83% of routine cases meet those timelines, meaning many wait significantly longer. There are currently nearly 4,000 children waiting for routine eating disorder support in England.
Can I self-refer to an eating disorder counsellor?
Yes. You do not need a GP referral to access private counselling. You can contact Counsellor Who Cares directly. I start with an intake form to make sure I have the availability to support you consistently, and then we arrange an initial consultation to talk through what is happening and whether working together is the right fit.
Can I see a private counsellor while I am on the NHS waiting list?
Yes, and I would encourage it if you are at a stage where you cannot safely wait. Specialist private counselling while you wait for NHS treatment can help stabilise things, begin addressing the underlying patterns, and put you in a much better position to engage with NHS therapy when your appointment arrives. It is not either/or.
How much does private eating disorder counselling cost?
- Counselling Session: £70 for 50 minutes
- Eating Disorder Treatment: £90 for 50 minutes
- Eating Disorder Assessment: £180 for 60 minutes
What is your approach to working with eating disorders?
I tend to describe it like building a jigsaw puzzle. In the first sessions I am listening hard for the key themes and patterns, what I think of as the hot words, that sit underneath the illness. My job is to get the frame of the puzzle in place first. Then we start working inwards, session by session, until the pieces come together. I work weekly to begin with, then fortnightly, then monthly as accountability, with the option to book back in at any point if needed.
What if my child needs a higher level of care than private counselling?
I will always tell you honestly if I believe your child needs a medical team around them rather than, or as well as, private counselling. Working within my BACP professional guidelines means being clear about the limits of what I can safely offer. If someone needs inpatient or intensive NHS support, I will say so. I will not take on a client if it would put either of us at risk.
What is New Maudsley Carers Kent?
New Maudsley Carers Kent is a local organisation that supports families and carers of people with eating disorders, using the evidence-based New Maudsley approach. They offer carer skills workshops, support groups, resources and access to recovery coaches and nutritionists. It is open to families and to professionals who want to better understand eating disorders. You can find them at newmaudsleycarers-kent.co.uk or call 07887 840470. I regularly recommend this group to the parents and carers I work with.
Where are you based?
I am based in Canterbury, Kent. I work with clients in person and online.
A final word
I started Counsellor Who Cares because I knew from experience, both personal and professional, that people with eating disorders deserve specialist support without having to fight for years to access it.
I cannot fix the waiting list. But I can be here while you wait. And I can be here for the people who cannot wait any longer.
If any of this has landed for you, please reach out. You do not have to do this on your own.
Becky Stone, Eating Disorder Specialist
Becky Stone
07510 495791
Becky Stone is a dedicated therapist with a deep commitment to supporting individuals through their recovery journey. With qualifications in eating disorder counselling and personal experience, Becky offers a unique blend of professional insight and empathy. Her approach is tailored to each client’s needs, fostering a safe and non-judgmental space for healing.
