Many HSE mental health teams are accessed through GP referral. This is particularly important for people with eating disorders as medical monitoring of their physical health is part of safe care, and the GP and mental health teamwork in partnership in this.
Your Core Treating Team
HSE Regional Eating Disorder Teams
These are the new community eating disorder specialist teams being developed under the HSE Model of Care for Eating Disorders. They will provide outpatient and day programme care (LINK).
Clinicians and therapists on these teams deliver a variety of therapies that are recommended for the treatment of eating disorders. See our Treatment Guide section for more information.
HSE eating disorder teams include Consultant Psychiatrists or Child Psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists, Nurses, Registered Dietitians, Social Workers, Family Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Creative Therapists.
As of January 2020, four of these regional eating disorder services have commenced their clinical services.
Linn Dara Community eating disorder service.
South Dublin Adult Eating Disorder Service (based in St Vincent’s Hospital)
Child and Adolescent Regional Eating Disorder Team - Cork Kerry
Sligo Adult Mental Health Service
Soon, all of these will be accessible through your GP, but right now some are accessed through CAMHS.
Community Mental Health Teams
These are adult and child (CAMHS) community mental health teams that provide care for a variety of mental health conditions, including eating disorders.
Most HSE mental health teams now have staff trained in key treatments like FBT and CBT-E - See our Treatment Guide to learn more about these treatments.
Adult mental health teams and CAMHS can be a good place to have your treatment when you also have another mental health condition that needs treatment first or at the same time e.g. depression or OCD.
They work closely with the regional eating disorder teams and GP’s to monitor physical health and weight.
HSE Inpatient Care
A small number of people with eating disorders require inpatient treatment due to being very unwell, and this may be to a medical or mental health setting.
At present, people usually attend their local Acute Hospital or Mental Health Unit to receive this care. In the last number of years, the NCPED has commenced a national training programme for all clinicians, so that you can be supported by a team of clinicians familiar with eating disorders if you need inpatient admission, wherever you live. In addition, a number of inpatient mental health units have now developed their own internal eating disorder programmes and this is growing.
The national HSE Model of Care for Eating Disorder Services recommends 4 adult and 5 child and adolescent units as key locations for inpatient eating disorder programmes in Ireland. These will be rolled out in line with the rest of the programme.
For further information on inpatient care, please see the following (LINK).
Dr Sara McDevitt talks about outpatient and inpatient care
