Cash-strapped NHS bans operations for obese
Obese people requiring hip and knee surgery will no longer be eligible for treatment on the NHS in parts of East Anglia, it has been announced.
Three Suffolk primary care trusts (PCTs) have said they will no longer offer treatment to patients with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30, citing “financial pressures” as a factor in their decision.
The average person has a body mass index of between 18.5 and 24.9, but a fifth of men and a quarter of women in Britain are classed as obese, under the World Health Organisation definition.
Doctors from Ipswich hospital have now drawn up a list of criteria to decide which patients go forward for operations, and say they hope it will save the trusts up to £50 million a year.
Surgery will only be performed if the patient’s BMI falls below the required level and other measures, such as physiotherapy, have failed to alleviate the patient’s pain and disability, to the point that it is interfering with their daily life.
Brian Keeble, director of public health for Ipswich PCT and the leader of the team that devised the guidelines, said: “Our work on clinical thresholds has been a key part of this process.
“We started from the idea that operating on some conditions, either at an early stage or before other treatments have been tried, could actually be detrimental to the patient because of the risk of side effects from the procedure.”
But Dr Keeble added: “We cannot pretend that this work wasn’t stimulated by the pressing financial problems of the NHS in East Suffolk.
“I believe that these thresholds will produce some clear benefits in that both patients and their GPs will know when these procedures will be performed.”
The decision was sharply criticised by the Liberal Democrats, who insisted treatment should not be denied on the basis of lifestyle.
“We cannot have a situation where the NHS sits in individual judgment over individual people. People should not be denied NHS treatment, having paid their taxes, simply on grounds of their lifestyle,” declared Lib Dem health spokesman Steve Webb.
“There may sometimes be legitimate clinical reasons why a person cannot have an operation. But that is a wholly different matter from denying overweight people care for financial reasons.”
