ANOREXIA and bulimia sufferers are waiting up to nine months for treatment because of a lack of funding for front-line services.

More than 100 adults are currently receiving out-patient treatment from the North-East Eating Disorder Service and there are another 70 on the waiting list.

Patients are being sent direct to the regional service because health authorities do not have the facilities to deal with sufferers.

The service's consultant psychiatrist says the problems are caused by a severe lack of funding.

Treatment for eating disorders for over-18s should be available from local health authorities with the regional service at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, serving acute cases.

But only Northumberland and Teesside health authorities have the necessary specialist facilities for bulimia and anorexia nervosa in the region.

Patients from Newcastle and North Tyneside, Gateshead, South Tyneside and County Durham are referred from their GPs to the regional service.

Dr Sylvia Dahabra, who runs the eating disorder service at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, said: "The service is drastically under- resourced. This has always been a problem.

"We try to be intelligent about the waiting list. If someone collapses or is losing weight rapidly they receive treatment within three months, but that means other people wait longer."

A spokesman for County Durham Health Authority said: "We spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on services and do provide some out patient services. But there is a shortage of experts. This is a national problem."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it is up to health authorities to decide how they are going to spend Government money.