Two million Brits to get free NHS gastric band ops to tackle obesity fuelled diabetes

A tenth of the NHS budget is used to treat Type 2 diabetes and its complications alone.

16:54 27 November 2014

New rulings aimed to tackle the country’s 'out of control' obesity crisis will see up to two million people offered free weight loss surgery on the NHS.

 

Health watchdog NICE wants to provide more Type 2 diabetics with a free gastric band or bypass operation which - according to the Daily Mirror - may cost the already strained NHS about £12BILLION.

 

Professor Mark Baker, NICE Centre for Clinical Practice director, said: "As a nation we are getting heavier. The number of people classified as obese has doubled over the last 20 years and continues to rise.

 

"Obesity is directly linked to Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis and it affects people’s mental health."

 

The financial implications are huge – 10% of the NHS budget is used to treat Type 2 diabetes and its complications alone.

 

“It is a major issue, if not the major issue, for the health service in the coming years.”

 

But Professor Iain Broom, director of the centre for obesity research and education at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, disagrees with the new guidelines. 

 

“NICE favour surgery, rather than diet, within the NHS, but they have missed swathes of evidence.

 

“The NICE guidance could send tens of thousands of Britons towards unnecessary surgery, costing taxpayers millions.

 

"All that is required is a different dietary and lifestyle approach including the use of low carbohydrate and calorie diets. While surgery has its place, it must remain a last resort.”

 

Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, said the new guidelines were “deeply regrettable” but should be “seen as a justifiable damage limitation exercise”.