Portsmouth CAMHS Specialist Eating Disorder Service

About the service

We are a multi-disciplinary team including a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Systemic Family therapist, Clinical Psychologist, Eating Disorder Practitioner, Family Support worker and Business administrator. We are a small team who work closely together to ensure that children and young people within our service receive the most appropriate care for their eating disorder. We are developing links with paediatric teams to ensure young people at high physical risk have their needs assessed and met.

What we do

Once referred, a member of our team will first call to gather more information, assess level, or risk and work out if we are the right team to offer assessment. If we are not, then recommendations and signposting will be given to the family.

If we do offer an assessment this will take place on a Thursday morning at Falcon House, St James Hospital. This is a comprehensive assessment that will last three hours including an hour break in the middle. The assessment will be conducted by two members of the team and the young person and parent/carer will be offered individual time during the assessment. We will also carry out some physical monitoring during your assessment. This will include weight and height measurement, blood pressure and temperature check.

After a comprehensive assessment that includes screening for neurodevelopmental factors, we offer NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) concordant treatments.

There is a range of treatments which can include:

Family Based Therapy
This has the best evidence base for treating young people with eating disorders. It requires the whole family to attend weekly sessions where the family are supported and empowered to help the young person recover from their eating disorder.
Enhanced Family Support
This includes medical management where physical observations are done weekly with our family support worker. Home visits can be offered to understand what happens around mealtimes. Psychoeducation and nutritional advice are given, and the aim is re-establishing regular eating and weight restoration.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a structured treatment that helps explore thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that the individual wants to change.
Adolescent Focused Therapy (AFT)
Individual therapy that focuses on identifying, tolerating, and managing emotions as well as developing strategies to deal with the tasks of adolescence.
Parent/Carers Support GroupAim of this group is to give parents/carers a space to share their experiences and learn from one another.