There is much better understanding of eating disorders now than there was 50 years ago. I can recall siblings of friends of mine just desperately struggling to understand what they could do, and the medical profession didn't really know what to do beyond force-feeding people who were determined to starve themselves to death.

So, we are now much better equipped to deal with this, and there's also much less stigma attached to it. Very high profile sufferers, like Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales, make it much more likely that young people will come forward and seek help, but we are a very long way from where we need to be. I think the 2018 review is a perfectly good summary of the problem and the steps that needed to be taken. So, it was disappointing that no formal response was given to that excellent report until September 2019, and it took a further 15 months to recruit a clinical lead for eating disorders. We hear from Beat that this individual has had a very positive impact since her arrival, and obviously that is a positive development. But there are many, many obstacles and difficulties here, which we really do need to be honest about.

One of my constituents, who developed a serious eating disorder during lockdown, was initially hospitalised on a CAMHS ward, then she was discharged because there was a COVID outbreak, and then pretty much left to her own devices, and unfortunately she was told that the nearest hospital where she could go for a specialist eating disorder service was in Wiltshire. There was nothing available in Wales. I appreciate that we were in the middle of a pandemic, but unfortunately she attempted to take her own life, and fortunately was saved by the University Hospital of Wales at the Heath, and now is a fantastic campaigner for ensuring that other people don't have to go through what she went through, so I pay full credit to her.

So, we absolutely can see from the Beat review that the disorder was given rocket boosters by the pandemic. We can see the figures that they quote: a 300 per cent rise in the number of people seeking help compared to pre pandemic, and a 50 per cent increase in referrals in at least two health boards. So, there really are far more patients presenting who need help than there are clinicians to support them.

But we have to start at the beginning. We have to have schools being much more aware of when the signs are appearing. My constituent makes really good points on this front. This really is a very complicated subject. This is the reverse side to the statement we had yesterday on the obesity strategy. How many schools are actively or passively conniving with the problem by encouraging young people to skip lunch due to a lack of time, or lack of space in the dining room to make it a pleasant experience rather than one you want to escape and go and hide somewhere else for? Obviously, that has a major impact on students' learning, as well as long-term potential problems for their relationship with food.

So, that is definitely the place where we need to start, but we also need GPs to be much more aware of what the signs are, so that they will take this seriously and not simply be pushing people from pillar to post. Because it simply isn't good enough to be going to one service and then being told, 'Oh, we've got to weigh you', and then you go to the clinical service and, 'We've got to weigh you.' People get the impression that they've got to become sicker before they can get any attention. Well, that's absolutely the reverse of the way that we need to address the health service. So, I think that person-centred approach, no wrong door, and not having to tell your story 65 times before you can get anywhere.

So, there are some very serious challenges, which I'm sure the Deputy Minister is considering, but we need to know what we are going to do to recruit more psychiatrists, more paediatricians and other medical specialists. Beat says there may be less of them than there were before the 2018 review. This means we are absolutely in the wrong place, not where we need to be. We need to have a recruitment and retention challenge that will ensure that those that we do manage to recruit, that we retain them and we don't burn them out. So, I'm very interested to hear what the Minister has to say, but this is a really serious issue, and I thank Plaid for bringing it forward.