The Cheshire and Merseyside Adolescent Eating Disorder Service (CHEDS) is a specialist outpatient team that offers assessment, treatment, and support to young people (13-18 years of age) and families who are struggling with their eating disorder. We support people to keep well in the community without needing admission to hospital.
Although CHEDS offers inpatient treatment, the majority of the young people who come to CHEDS are treated on an outpatient basis. CHEDS uses a Family-based treatment approach for anorexia nervosa (FT-AN) along with other therapeutic modalities. We provide a range of groups for young people and parents, along with individual work and parent work. In addition, we provide psychiatry, dietetic and some add on treatments for co-morbidities.
Inpatient treatment
CHEDS tries to avoid hospital admissions wherever possible through its intensive outpatient programme, however sometimes if a young person is struggling to make progress in the community, an inpatient admission to Ancora House in Chester may be considered. Typically, CHEDS have access to 4 inpatient beds at Ancora House.
Who is the service for?
CHEDS support to young people aged 13-18 with a primary diagnosis of a severe and complex eating disorder.
Referrals are currently accepted from Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services across Cheshire and Merseyside, including CWP Spoke teams based in Wirral, Chester, Crewe, Winsford and Macclesfield.
We generally assess young people who are struggling to make progress with input from community eating disorder teams and require more intensive outpatient support from CHEDS or require an inpatient admission to Ancora House. Alternatively, we may receive a referral to provide the community team with a second opinion on treatment.
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In order to be assessed by CHEDS, your child must first be receiving treatment from one of the CWP or Mersey Care teams. CHEDS receives most of its referrals through CYP eating disorder services across Cheshire and Merseyside however we also receive referrals from other eating disorder teams as apart of 2nd opinion or can offer consultation regarding specific cases. Referrals to our service are submitted on a NHSE Tier 4 Referral Form from the community eating disorder services. |
The first appointment will be an assessment lasting approximately two hours. There is an assessment slot every Wednesday morning at 9.30am. Community teams can get in touch to book these slots. Assessments are in person in the family therapy room at Ancora House however sometimes some professionals such as the individual worker may join online via Microsoft teams.
When you arrive, you will be given a pack of questionnaires to complete; these will help us to understand your thoughts and feelings and think about what support you may need. We can support you to complete these questionnaires or provide any adaptations to enable you to fill them in.
You will then meet with clinicians who have a lot of experience working with young people with eating disorders from a range of professional backgrounds as this gives us a more in depth assessment and formulation of your difficulties. Other members of the team will be involved as well so that we can all think together about what would help you most, and we often have visiting students (medical, nursing, or other health professionals) as part of this team. We often use a one-way screen where team members are behind the screen, and we have some time together to share our thoughts before feeding back to you. At other times, we have team members in the room with you and you can listen to their discussions. This can help come to a shared view of the current difficulties and what might make a difference.
We find it helpful in the first appointment to meet you and all those living at home. We will spend some time together listening to you and about anything that you feel has helped so far. We ask your family to be involved in this first appointment because they may have a different understanding of your current difficulties and want to know how they can best help you. You will also have the chance to be seen by a clinician on your own. This appointment will also give you the opportunity to ask any questions about the service and how we work.
You will be expected to have your mid-morning snack as a part of this appointment and will be informed via letter and your individual to bring this to the assessment.
During this assessment you will have your physical health check completed by one of our nurses which will help inform further decisions.
We are based on the hospital site of the Countess of Chester. There are signposts to Bowmere Hospital and Ancora House. Appointments take place at Ancora house where our team are based. Ancora House has two wards: Indigo and Coral.
There is free parking at Ancora House and Bowmere Hospital.
CHEDS also has an agreement with the Paediatric ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital. We may sometimes admit young people here for a 2-week refeeding admission if they are physically compromised or require this to start to make some change in the community.
If a Tier 4 admission to Ancora House is not deemed appropriate for a young person under CHEDS, they may be referred to a Specialist Eating Disorder unit for their inpatient treatment (e.g., The Priory / Galaxy House). However the aim of our service is to avoid this.
CHEDS is the Tier 4 Inpatient and Outpatient Service and there are 6 Community Eating Disorder Teams, sitting within the Cheshire and Merseyside footprint that can refer into our service. Sometimes we can provide consultation or gatekeeping assessment to other services. CHEDS provides monthly consultation to each of the teams below.
The community eating disorder teams are based in the following locations:
• Wirral team: Birkenhead
• West Cheshire team: Chester
• Central Cheshire team: Crewe & Winsford
• East Cheshire team: Macclesfield
• EDYS: Alder Hey
• CEDS: Whiston
Cheshire and Merseyside Eating Disorder Service (CHEDS),
Ancora House,
Countess of Chester Health Park,
Chester,
CH2 1BQ.
Tel: 01244 393220
Email: cwp.