Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of NICE guidance on bariatric surgery (CG189).

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) issued a clinical guideline on the identification, assessment and management of obesity in 2014 that makes recommendations on the use of bariatric surgery.

NICE’s guideline recommends bariatric surgery as an option for people with obesity if all of the following criteria are fulfilled:

- They have a body mass index of 40 kg/m2 or more, or between 35 kg/m2 and 40 kg/m2 and other significant diseases (for example, type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure) that could be improved if they lost weight;

- All appropriate non-surgical measures have been tried but the person has not achieved or maintained adequate, clinically beneficial weight loss;

- The person has been receiving or will receive intensive management in a tier 3 service;

- The person is generally fit for anaesthesia and surgery; and

- The person commits to the need for long-term follow-up.