• NHS England and NHS Improvement have announced a £40m boost for children and young people's mental health services, including for addressing increasing demand for the treatment of eating disorders.
• The money includes £10m capital funding to provide extra beds and £1.5m for additional facilities for children under 13.
• The funding is on top of the £79m previously announced.

Responding to NHS England and NHS Improvement's announcement of a funding boost for young people's mental health services, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said: "We welcome the extra funding announced today for children and young people's mental health services.

"Our recent survey found that these services are under increasing pressure, despite significant support and investment. All of the mental health trust leaders surveyed said they had seen demand increase in the last six month and the majority said that waiting times had spiralled. Trusts singled out eating disorder services, and child and adolescent community and inpatient care, as particular services where it was difficult to meet demand.

"Many pointed to the pandemic as a reason behind these figures, which has led to increased complexity of symptoms which take longer to address, a lack of social care provision as well as a long-standing care deficit across mental health services arising from decades of underinvestment.

"Trust leaders also shared their concerns about staff and bed shortages. It is good to see some of these challenges addressed in today's revenue and capital funding announcement. Building an appropriate bed base and a safe therapeutic environment, alongside increased community based provision, preventing the need for admission, and workforce investment are all key to ensuring that we give children and young people high quality care closer to home.

"The government should now consider the needs of children and young people in its upcoming plans for social care reform."