Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing the use of body mass index thresholds to determine eligibility for joint replacement surgery.

The Department has made no specific assessment of the potential merits of removing the use of body mass index (BMI) thresholds to determine eligibility for joint replacement surgery. It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine policies for their local area.

As with all surgery, BMI would be considered as part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient. However, BMI should not be considered in isolation and in and of itself should not act as a barrier to 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.