Obesity: Health Services

(asked on 4th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement of 4 March 2021, New specialised support to help those living with obesity to lose weight, what proportion of the allocated funding will be spent on support for (a) Tier 3 weight management services and (b) Tier 4 weight management services; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 15th March 2021

As part of delivering the commitments set out in ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’, the Government announced £100 million extra funding for healthy weight programmes. Of this funding, around £35 million will be allocated to councils and £35 million to the National Health Service to be invested into weight management services. This will enable up to 700,000 adults to have access to support that can help them to achieve a healthy weight, from access to digital apps, weight management groups or individual coaches, to specialist clinical support.

The remaining £30 million will fund initiatives to help people maintain a healthy weight, including access to the free NHS 12 week weight loss plan app, continuing the Better Health marketing campaign to motivate people to make healthier choices, and upskilling healthcare professionals. Decisions about the provision of tier 3 and 4 weight management services, are made at a local level, reflecting varying pressures on local health systems and availability of capacity, including use of the independent sector, and taking into account of the rate of recovery of elective services following the COVID-19 pandemic.

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