Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that patients with a high body mass index are able to access joint replacement surgery in line with NICE guidelines.

The Department has made no specific assessment of this criterion alone.

As with all surgery, body mass index would 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. However, body mass index should not be considered in isolation and in and of itself should not act as a barrier to surgery.

For example, blanket body mass index thresholds for surgery should not be in place or used as a means of determining eligibility for surgery.

As part of the NHS Elective Reform Plan there is a commitment to expand access to the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme for patients waiting for hip and knee surgery.