The NHS is putting young women with anorexia into comas in a ‘last resort’ attempt to force feed them.
In some cases, patients with extreme malnutrition are experiencing weeks of sedation and oxygen administration in intensive care units due to the rise in eating disorders cases.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, at least six individuals have been placed under general anaesthesia in ICUs to facilitate feeding until they achieve a healthier weight. Some hospitals have even resorted to seeking court orders to support this intervention.
As per court documents, a 20-year-old woman has spent 19 days in a coma in intensive care, receiving tube feeding without a clear ‘exit plan’ as of the latest update.
Two 17-year-old anorexia patients have also been sedated for tube feeding – one as recently as last November. It is understood at least three more patients have received the same treatment recently, including one in Scotland.
Doctors at ACUTE, a globally renowned eating disorder clinic in the US, said the NHS was going ‘far beyond’ accepted practice, with founder Dr Philip Mehler saying: ‘We see the most severe cases yet we have never had to resort to this.’
It is understood unpublished guidelines have been drafted by the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) on the treatment – which one psychiatrist has said this is to ‘ensure’ it ‘could be delivered safely elsewhere’, according to court documents.
The NHS is putting young women with anorexia into comas in a ‘last resort’ attempt to force feed them. Pictured: File photo
Concerned experts and campaigners have said the treatment does not match what is considered best practice for treating anorexia – medication, therapy, monitoring and restraint.
Internal medicine specialist Dr Mehler, who runs the ACUTE clinic in Denver, Colorado, said many of the practice’s patients arrive by air ambulance from hospitals ‘unable to manage catastrophic complications’.
But even ACUTE, which sees these severe cases, has never had to use the coma treatment.
The clinic’s medical director Dr Patricia Westmoreland said the treatment was ‘hugely concerning’, calling it ‘the ultimate deprivation of any form of autonomy’.
It risks complications in the patient’s stomach, lungs and even brain, she said – and she ‘can’t begin to imagine’ the psychological effect on a patient who suddenly wakes up to find themselves in a transformed body, having had no therapy to cope with that transition.
The BMI of the 20-year-old who has been sedated for 19 days is around 11 – when a healthy range for her age category is between 18.5 and 24.9.
Doctors initially said they would keep her under anaesthesia for between four and 11 more weeks.
But managing her deep coma has been ‘extremely challenging’, the Court of Protection heard on Tuesday – she has not gained weight and there was now ‘even less certainty’ around her progress than before she was sedated.
Patients are being sedated and given oxygen in intensive care units for weeks at a time in some instances, as the number of cases of extreme malnutrition rises among those with the eating disorder. Pictured: File photo
The hospital said there had been ‘some setbacks’ but moving her to a specialist eating disorder unit ‘remains a potential option subject to confirmation when her treatment is over’.
A spokesperson for the hospital trust said: ‘Our thoughts are with the patient and her family during this very difficult time.’
It is understood concerns have previously been raised about an instance of the coma treatment from last year, which saw a 17-year-old sedated for 12 days.
Barrister Nicola Kohn, instructed by the Official Solicitor on the teenager’s behalf, did not oppose the treatment but questioned its use before court, raising particularly the psychological effects it could have.
A hospital trust spokesperson said decisions about care were made by multi-disciplinary teams, working in the ‘best interests’ of patients and families, with the court’s ‘oversight and scrutiny’.
It is understood unpublished guidance has been drafted, by the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM), on the ‘ethical, legal and practical aspects’ of the treatment.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is currently being consulted on the move by the professional body representing intensive care specialists.
One psychiatrist described the guidance as part of ‘a collective drive to prepare clinical guidance to ensure the [coma] treatment could be delivered safely elsewhere’.
At least six people are understood to have been put under general anaesthesia in the ICU to feed them until they reach a healthier weight. Pictured: File photo
The number of children hospitalised with eating disorders has rocketed by more than 500 per cent in a decade, a major study found.
Admissions for eating disorders jumped from 478 to 2,938 between 2012 and 2022 – a rise of almost 515 per cent, according to the findings in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.
Children’s eating disorders have doubled in under a decade, damning figures from last year showed.
More than 10,600 kids in England were waiting to begin treatment in last school year.
This is up more than 5,000 on 2016/2017 when 5,240 children were left in the queue. Some have even endured delays of more than a year.
An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘Clinicians must do everything within their power to provide effective and proven treatments to patients but it is understood that in incredibly rare and complex circumstances like these, this option might be used as a last resort to avoid imminent death after all known treatments are exhausted.’
NHS England, FICM and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have been contacted for comment.
