The lack of psychotherapy services

Most people who know me know that I work with eating disorders. I run a BEAT support group for those affected by eating disorders.  I have run the group for the last ten years.  The treatment for eating disorders whether anorexia, bulimia, binge eating or atypical difficulties is mainly through talking therapies. A combination of group/individual behavioural and psychotherapeutic/psychodynamic/integrative work depending on the difficulties.  Generally when I am contacted about the group most are in some sort of treatment whether it is supportive work with a specialist nurse or dietitian or seeing a psychiatrist in the eating disorders unit local to that person.  A number of issues come up repeatedly year after year.  The main one I hear which seems to be getting worse in terms of accessing- is getting skilled talking therapies with a skilled up practitioner experienced with eating disorders and for longer than 10 or twenty sessions. Despite eating disorder services being commissioned on a far greater level each year the demand is increasing especially with binge eating disorder which is coming out of the woodwork. This poses a number of issues. Services may not be geared up to take on these sufferers as they do not have the resources so the threshold for being accepted for NHS help is raised again for only the most severe get access to NHS help.  This is wrong as there are risks associated with this especially binge eating such as metabolic syndrome, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol to name a few reasons why everyone should be able to access help. Currently locally the waiting list to see a psychologist for treatment is 18 months. Even the you get a maximum of 20 sessions. May years long term work was considered one year and accessible. Psychiatrists and other members of the team feel uncomfortable saying no but have no choice and can help someone find a private therapist. This is outrageous however unless real investment is ut in place the situation will continue to get worse.