Obesity: Health Services

(asked on 28th February 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish a breakdown of the number of people on waiting lists for tier 3 weight management services by (a) Integrated Care Board area and (b) NHS trust.


Answered by
Andrea Leadsom Portrait
Andrea Leadsom
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 8th March 2024

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning tier three specialist weight management services (SWMS). These services are generally aimed at those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities. They provide support through a tailored programme of care from multidisciplinary teams able to assess and work with patients to establish the most suitable care, considering psychological, behavioural, dietary drivers, as well as underlying disordered eating or compulsions. These tier three SWMS are primarily delivered in secondary care, with occasional specialist primary and community-based provision.

In 2021, during the pandemic, NHS England oversaw a SWMS mapping exercise, via voluntary ICB and trust submission, to inform the COVID-19 recovery plan. Overall findings at the time suggested 37 out of 42 ICBs were commissioning provision of tier three SWMS, with approximately 35,000 patients in England accessing services. However, capacity constraints indicated an estimated 12,000 patients waiting to access services, with an average waiting time of six months nationally. ICBs who participated in the voluntary mapping exercise did not consent to the publication of identifiable information. NHS England does not routinely capture specific data on waiting times to access tier three SWMS.

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