A CORONER has warned there is lack of training for doctors around eating disorders after presiding over inquests into the deaths of five women with anorexia.

Sean Horstead outlined his concerns in a report to prevent future deaths, which was published this week.

He has sent his report to five parties, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock, and has asked for responses by April 28.

Mr Horstead, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire, said responses “must contain details of action taken or proposed to be taken, setting out the timetable for action”.

He added: “Otherwise you must explain why no action is proposed.”

Mr Horstead concluded last November the death of 19-year-old university student Averil Hart was avoidable and was contributed to by neglect.

Read more: Death of teenager with anorexia could have been avoided, inquest concludes

Averil was discharged from the eating disorder clinic at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in August 2012 and started her creative writing course at the University of East Anglia in Norwich the following month.

The former Colchester Royal Grammar School student lost weight during her first term and was found collapsed in her room on December 7.

She died in hospital in Cambridge eight days later.

He previously oversaw inquests into the deaths of four other women – Amanda Bowles, Madeline Wallace, Emma Brown and Maria Jakes.

In his report, written after hearing the five inquests, Mr Horstead said there is a lack of training of doctors and other medical professionals about eating disorders.

He added: “I am concerned that there may also be a significant under-reporting of the extent to which eating disorders have caused or contributed to deaths, leading to cases either not being referred to the coroner or, if they are, the coroner in question determining that death was one of ‘natural causes’ with only the terminal cause of death, and not the underlying eating disorder cause or contribution to the death, being recorded.

“In such circumstances there is a concern that a number of such deaths (where, for example, lack of care may have contributed to the death) are neither investigated appropriately by the coroner nor taken to inquest, with a risk of a significant under-estimation of the true mortality rate of eating disorders.

“In my view, taken together, the absence of statistically robust data on the numbers of those suffering from eating disorders, and the potential under-estimation of those deaths to which eating disorders may have caused or contributed, gives rise to an objective risk that avoidable eating disorder deaths will continue in the future.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We recognise how important it is that everyone gets the mental health support they need.”

The spokesperson added that a working group has been set up to address the recommendations of a Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman report, published in 2017, titled “Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients”.