Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will take steps to ensure that healthcare practitioners routinely check obese patients for signs of osteoarthritis.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guideline ‘Obesity: Guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children’ published in 2006, makes recommendations on the treatment of obese patients. The guideline outlines that patients who are overweight or obese should be assessed for a number of conditions, including osteoarthritis.