More beds and specialists to run residential treatment programmes for people with eating disorders were announced by the Health Minister Tony Ryall and Associate Minister Jonathan Coleman tonight.

As part of Budget 2009, around $26 million of Mental Health Blueprint money will be invested nationally over four years for the treatment of eating disorders.

The extra $6.5 million of new funding in 2009/10 will increase overall government spending on eating disorder services by over 50 per cent from current annual spending of about $10.5 million.

"The investment will mean up to eight community residential beds for Auckland, four new dedicated beds at Starship hospital, and expansion to the Central Region Eating Disorder Service and the Southern Region's Community Eating Disorder Service," Mr Ryall said.

"Once the new services are fully staffed and operational, more families will be able to get New Zealand based residential services which they have previously turned to Australia for."

The new services are expected to begin from mid-next year but it will take more time to be fully operational.

"We know that specialist eating disorder treatments need a highly skilled workforce. Some of this funding will be used for training and increasing the specialist workforce in this area," Mr Ryall said.