No single treatment or approach works for every patient experiencing an eating disorder. I know from my own tortuous experiences, both with and without treatment, that it is extremely hard to get help, and there is too little money in the system to provide enough care.

But I also know it is possible to get help and to recover. Hope is crucial for those with eating disorders, as well as carers and health professionals. The aim of eating disorders awareness week, which runs from 2-8 March, is to break down stigma, help more people understand these disorders and bring hope about recovery.

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Is this realistic? Speaking to patients, carers and clinicians, I am struck by the sheer desperation of so many people saying the system has failed them. Too many find that nothing is done until they are at death’s door. Others say no one talks about binge-eating disorder, which is still too often seen as a weakness or a problem that dieting can fix, rather than a real eating disorder.

Clinicians, too, paint a gloomy picture of the state of services. Oxford-based eating disorder consultant Agnes Ayton, who chairs the faculty of eating disorders at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is frank about the problems. She believes NHS eating disorder services are on their knees and desperately need more money after years of austerity.

Staff are still committed to providing quality care, as I know well: I recovered from my own long-standing eating disorder in Oxford, having been failed by the system in other services. But Ayton’s service for outpatients, like many others, is contracted by the local clinical commissioning group to treat people with moderate or severe eating disorders, and is technically unable to treat patients deemed to have either mild or extreme disorders. Ayton believes making this distinction is unworkable and unethical, and is concerned that it stems from a lack of understanding about the nature of eating disorders.

Tim Kendall, who directs clinical investment policy for eating disorders and mental health for NHS England (NHSE), says funding is being focused on community services rather than specialist eating disorder beds. Managing eating disorder illnesses through community care, in his clinical view, enables earlier intervention and reduces need for hospital beds.

The problem is that this categorises hospital-based care as only for people with very serious physical health problems who need admitting to a general ward because of the severity of their disorder, when inpatient treatment should be about more than just restoring physical health.

Kendall is keen to build on what he sees as the success of new investment in treatment for children and young people, to transform treatments for adult eating disorders. This falls within a larger framework of community mental health services being developed for adults.

Almost £1bn more each year has been promised for community mental health services for adults as part of the NHS long term plan. So far, 12 sites have received more than £70m to pilot new integrated models of primary and community mental health. Of those, eight are implementing innovative new outpatient schemes to improve access and quality services for adults with eating disorders.

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While it’s good to have £1bn allocated to mental health services, I worry that this could pit eating disorder services against other mental illnesses, particularly as the long term plan includes no significant investment for adult eating disorder services in the next two years.

Kendall says the new scheme includes what he describes as significant investment for eating disorders, and that two two of the pilot sites are for inpatient treatment of eating disorders. All the pilots will be monitored to see what works best. Importantly, Kendall says the rule for new services will be that they “open the doors”, rather than wait for people to be at their worst before being able to access mental health care.

In some areas, this is already happening. Kendall recently tweeted that Cambridge and Peterborough NHS foundation trust has removed its threshold for access to eating disorder services, so anyone who needs support can get it. The question is how many other eating disorder services will be able to do the same.

There are some encouraging signs. In West Yorkshire and Harrogate, consultant psychiatrist William Rhys Jones, who works for the Connect community and inpatient eating disorders service, says he is seeing real change. Connect’s community outreach teams deliver home-based treatment for people with severe and enduring eating disorders.

This is one of the NHSE new care models and Jones says results so far have been very positive. Clinical community services and early intervention result in a good prognosis, he says – and it is cost effective. While inpatient treatment costs about £434 a day, community treatment costs about £20 to £35 a day, with similar or even improved clinical outcomes.

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While there are concerns about limiting inpatient treatment and prioritising community treatment simply because it may be cheaper, positive examples like this can help hold the NHS to its promise to make treatment truly open to all who need it.

• Lorna Collins is a peer support worker, artist and writer. She tweets from @sensinglorna