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09 November 2021

MANTRA training to be rolled out to adult eating disorder services across England

The training programme, co-developed at King’s College London, has been awarded a three-year contract to design and deliver MANTRA training to experienced clinicians across the country

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Adult eating disorder services across the country will soon benefit from training on the Maudsley Model of Anorexia Nervosa Treatment for Adults (MANTRA).

Training will be delivered by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, in partnership with London Maudsley Learning at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). The partners were awarded a three-year contract worth £471k by Health Education England to design and deliver the MANTRA training programme to experienced clinicians across the country.

The contract responds to the need to upskill experienced clinicians to improve care for those who use eating disorder services. It will ensure patients can benefit from evidenced-based interventions in line with the MANTRA curriculum and competencies.

MANTRA is a highly effective treatment, and our patients like it. As developers of this treatment, we have been inundated with requests for training and are thrilled that we will now be able to respond to these requests by training therapists from all adult eating disorder teams in England. Ultimately, this means that patients will be able to choose from different treatment options suited to their needs.

Professor Ulrike Schmidt, Professor of Eating Disorders at IoPPN and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Eating Disorders Service at SLaM

MANTRA is a structured individual psychotherapy with integrated carer support for adults with anorexia nervosa, and is one of three NICE-recommended therapies to be used as a first-line treatment for anorexia nervosa. It was co-developed by Professors Ulrike Schmidt and Janet Treasure at King’s College London, with support from the National Institute for Health Research Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

The new training programme will be aimed at qualified practitioners with a core mental health profession (such as psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, allied health professionals and social workers) who work in specialist adult or all-age eating disorder services. Collaboration with service users and carers features throughout the programme, from the training design and delivery, through to evaluation and quality assurance.

MANTRA has developed as part of an organic process, by which patients and carers have continued to contribute to the co-design and shaped the materials. This course will give health professionals both the core foundational elements and will also illustrate how new evidence can be integrated creatively.

Professor Janet Treasure, Professor of Adult Psychiatry at IoPPN and Clinical and Academic Psychiatrist at SLaM

This successful award demonstrates the unparalleled expertise in the field of eating disorders at IoPPN and SLaM, bringing together clinical and academic excellence. The award-winning Maudsley Learning team will be working closely with clinical academics to deliver this project and bring together their expertise in high quality workforce development and training programmes.

Training delivery will begin in March 2022 with a cohort of 45 trainees from NHS services across England. Subsequent training deliveries will train up to 90 healthcare professionals each year.

More information about the programme is available here: https://maudsleylearning.com/courses/mantra-training-programme/

If you are a Service Lead or professional working in eating disorders services in England, please direct interest and enquiries about the programme to MANTRA4NHS@slam.nhs.uk.

In this story

Ulrike Schmidt

Professor of Eating Disorders

Janet Treasure

Professor of Adult Psychiatry