Eating disorders: national network minutes – March 2026

Attendees and apologies

• Cathy Richards, chair of the network, Scottish Government
• Katherine Morton, clinical advisor, Scottish Government
• Fiona Duffy, clinical advisor, Scottish Government
• Ellen Maloney, lived experience, peer researcher at the University of Edinburgh
• Hazel Cain, advanced clinical nurse specialist, CAMHS North of Scotland (NoS)
• Lorna Pennycook, Senior Project Manager, NHS North of Scotland Regional Team
• Fiona Calder, head of programme for CAMHS NES (NHS Education for Scotland), and consultant clinical psychologist NHS GGC (Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
• Lesley Pillans, associate specialist psychiatrist, Eden unit NHS Grampian, clinical lead of North of Scotland Eating Disorder Managed Clinical Network, and clinical lead for Eating Disorders Education and Training Scotland (EEATS)
• Sam Aitcheson, consultant clinical psychologist NHS Grampian, chair of the leads for adult psychology ED network
• Julie Coppola, charge nurse, community eating disorder service, NHS Ayrshire and Arran
• Louise Johnston, chair, faculty of eating disorders of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland
• Ruairidh Mckay, consultant psychiatrist, regional eating disorder unit (REDU) NHS Lothian, co-chair of the adult IPU network
• Alex Jones, national lead, Beat
• Carol Morgan, Dudhope CAMHS inpatient unit carer’s support worker
• Julie Hogg-Weld, SupportED operations director
• Lindsay Stevenson, Team Leader, Scottish Government
• Hannah Deane, Policy Adviser, Scottish Government
• Sharvari Patil - Participation and Involvement Officer, Beat
• Olivia Hadden-Young – Lived Experience Panel representative, Beat
• Kirsty Ewen - Lived Experience Panel representative, Beat

Apologies

• Hazel Elliot, NHS Scottish dietetic eating disorders clinical forum
• Stephen Anderson, consultant psychiatrist, NHS GGC
• Rachael Smith, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Professional Lead CAMHS, NHS Grampian, Chair, CAMHS ED Group and Chair, Child Heads of Psychology (CHOPS)
• Diane Kane, senior occupational therapist NHS Lanarkshire, chair of the OT ED network

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The chair welcomes attendees and notes apologies, encouraging those to use the chat to introduce themselves.

Scottish Government update

The chair gives an update on the central team’s work since the last meeting. There has been interest in Parliament around eating disorders, including various parliamentary questions, and the eating disorder awareness week debate.

In advance of this, the central team worked with NHS24 to highlight the availability of recently created resources. These resources were summarised in a newsletter circulated to the network, and a letter sent to all MSPs. 

Last week, the Network hosted a webinar on early intervention and heard from three Scottish services about how they are beginning to work with self-referrals and using the FREED (First-episode Rapid Early intervention for Eating Disorders) model. The webinar was well attended, and has received positive feedback.

The central team has continued to work with NHS inform, and a self-help guide on binge eating has now been published. The Lived Experience Panel (LEP) are currently reviewing this to identify any possible improvements. A body image support page has also been published. 

The team also continues to look into further early intervention resources, which may look to sit alongside existing SilverCloud resources

NHS inform is still progressing videos that are to sit on the site, including a GP video about how to access treatment and support, and also a further video from a carer perspective.

The chair then intoduces to Lindsay Stevenson (LS) who introduces herself as the new team leader of the Regional CAMHS, Eating Disorders and Perinatal and Infant Mental Health team. 

Co-production update 

The chair gives a brief update regarding the co-production guidance, discussed at the last Network meeting on 11 December 2025 – due to competing priorities, this has not been progressed further. 

However, the central team met with North of Scotland colleagues to discuss how to include the voice of carers, so they can be integrated into guidance. It was commented that sharing examples of how NHS Boards and regions are embedding the voice of lived experience in their day to day work would be really useful. The central team are thinking about how best to progress this work over the coming months.

Training updates

NES updates

Fiona Calder (FC) provides an overview on the newly launched Turas eating disorders training pages, as well as ongoing training courses for staff.

There are plans to co-create a landing page with Beat’s LEP.

Since launch in February, over 500 users have used the new training pages. 

NES provide an update of training updates including:

• launching their refreshed essential CAMHS models. This includes the views of children and young people, creating them into animations. One of these animations focuses on eating disorders
• their One Year Development Plan for new CAMHS staff
• supporting supervisors to attend an Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) conference
• continuing to deliver Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Eating Disorders (CBT-ED) training

NES’ current plans for next year include developing the TURAS site and updating this with new resources, maintaining current intervention and supervision workstreams, and also support Eating Disorders Education and Training Scotland (EEATS) scholarships developments.

FC advises that NES will become a new organisation from April – Public Services Delivery Scotland. 

The Chair invites the LEP members to speak on how they have supported various pieces of work, including providing feedback on NES TURAS training materials, and on their meetings with NES colleagues where they discussed their experiences of accessing care for an eating disorder.

The LEP highlighted to NES areas where their journey through the healthcare system could have been better supported including the use of more empathetic language by professionals, support to help individuals maintain their autonomy within treatment, and recognising any co-morbidities that may be present and support required for them. 

NES colleagues took on board the above feedback from the LEP, and made changes to the TURAS eating disorders site. Members advised they felt they had really been listened to throughout the whole process, and this was a good example of co-production in practice. 

They are now working with NES on a talking heads project for the TURAS site, to record videos/voices to share their own experiences for those accessing the site, and working with those with an eating disorder. 

North of Scotland – Eating Disorders pathway update

The North of Scotland team provide an overview of their tier 4 CAMHS programme of work, supported by the Scottish Government, to look at intensive treatment, particularly at the eating disorders pathway. 

Primary Care video update

Primary care videos are being produced to be hosted via NES when completed. The brief is to produce some videos on eating disorders and physical risk assessment for primary care.

There will be three 20 minute videos, with the first being an introduction to eating disorders and physical risk assessment. The second video will look at physical risk more widely, looking at other co-occurring conditions and high risk populations. Finally the third will focus on the essentials of primary care consultations and communications, in terms of how physical risk is communicated. The LEP has also been feeding back on this project. 

There are plans to do first draft recordings in April. 

Update re mitigations and considerations for community eating disorder services in Scotland with a psychiatry vacancy document

The draft document was circulated to members following the last Network meeting. Comments were addressed, and some tweaks have been made to the document. Following Scottish Government approval, this will be circulated to the Network for wider sharing.

GLP-1 Discussion

The Chair introduces the discussion around GLP-1 medications. Beat advise that later in the year they will be running a workshop on this topic, and further details will be circulated well in advance.  

Members were split into two groups to discuss the increase of GLP-1s being used in the wider population, and also in the eating disorder population. There has been some feedback that this is posing new challenges. It may be beneficial for the Scottish Government to consider a short life working group in this area.

Key points discussed in groups were as follows:

• both groups agreed that some form of guidance would be helpful
• there is a diversity of experience – for some these are helpful medications, and for others they are not and cause further risk
• there seems to be a delay in clinical services hearing about individuals experiences of using these medications because of the stigma that’s associated with using them. How can we normalise questions about this in conversations about assessments? How can we collect data on this, as there seems to be a gap here?
• it was acknowledged that GLP-1 medications are changing the culture around diet e.g marketing for specific food for those on the medication
• would be useful to link in with other stakeholders (e.g Royal College of Psychiatrists) to see what work is ongoing in their networks in this area
• feedback around whether services should exclude or see people using GLP-1 agonists 
• it could be seen as another tool that may be used as a compensatory behaviour. Must be recognised when this can be used as a tool in somebody’s recovery
• concerns were raised around how people are accessing these medications, in terms of safeguarding, as well as the variability between private providers in terms of support/regulation
• if a short life working group were to go ahead, which was agreed by both groups, weight management, pharmacy and prescribing colleagues would also need to be involved   

The chair brings this section to a close, advising that we’ll consider how to take forward a short life working group. The chair encourages the Network to circulate Beat’s workshop offer when it is available, as the Scottish Government’s grant to Beat funds places for professionals in Scotland.  

Update on webinars and FREED grant

The chair advises we are continuing to map out webinar ideas. Based on ongoing discussions with stakeholders the following areas had been discussed: intensive treatment options, GLP-1 medications, data collection and gaps, and ARFID.

The chair mentions various conferences that will be available to professionals in the coming months including an NHS Benchmarking conference, and a conference regarding the Pathway for Eating disorders and Autism developed from Clinical Experience (PEACE) pathway.

The chair encourages members to share any planned meetings, conferences or workshops, so that they can be circulated with the Network more widely.

Any other business

The chair advises that a further meeting will be taking place in June. The team should be able to provide an official update regarding the future of the Network then.

The meeting is brought to a close.