§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what plans his Department has to increase the number of surgical procedures to treat obesity on the NHS; and if he will make a statement; [159770]
(2) how many surgical procedures to treat obesity were carried out on the NHS in each year since 1996. [159771]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) published guidance in July 2002 on surgery to lid weight reduction for people with morbid obesity.
The Department worked with the British Obesity Surgery Society (BOSS) on a planned implementation of the NICE guidance to ensure it was implemented safely. This additional advice was issued to strategic health authorities in September 2003.
The table shows the number of finished consultant episodes for operations undertaken with a primary diagnosis of obesity.
Number 1995–96 299 1996–97 272 1997–98 280 1998–99 389 1999–2000 388 2000–01 492 2001–02 440 2002–03 538 Note: 1. A finished consultant episode (FCE) is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. The figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of are within the year. 2. The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (7 prior to 2002–03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. 3. Ungrossed data—figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed). Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health.