Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to end the use of body mass index as a criterion for determining eligibility for joint replacement surgery.

It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine clinical commissioning policies for their local areas, including eligibility for joint replacement surgery.

As with all surgery, body mass index (BMI) should be considered as part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus the clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient. BMI should not be considered in isolation as a barrier to surgery.

As part of the NHS Elective Reform Plan, the Government has committed to expanding access to the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme for patients waiting for hip and knee replacements. This will help optimise patients for their surgery, potentially leading to a reduced length of hospital stay and minimising their risk of post-operative complications.