Merseyside ‘operations ban on fat patients’

Oct 1 2007 by Jessica Shaughnessy, Liverpool Daily Post

HEALTH chiefs in part of Merseyside are restricting operations to patients who are deemed to be too fat, it will be claimed tonight.

Halton and St Helens Primary Care Trust is one of just 16 PCTs in England that have policies restricting operations for obese people or smokers, according to a documentary due to be screened tonight

In a survey of the country’s 152 PCTs, it emerged that one in every 10, including the Merseyside authority, restricts joint replacement or other non-emergency operations to these patients.

Out of the 16, eight NHS trusts, including Halton & St Helens, have a policy that limits operations because of a patient’s weight.

A person’s Body Mass Index (BMI) or weight is often used to judge whether someone meets the criteria for surgeries.

But critics argue that setting a limit based on weight unfairly rules out thousands of otherwise perfectly healthy patients.

Obesity experts also say that the BMI measurement, which is a person’s height divided by weight, is too inaccurate.

Another North West PCT, Stockport, is the only one in England that restricts surgery on the basis of smoking habits alone, and seven trusts have guidelines that cover both smokers and the obese. Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients Association, said: “It’s absolutely clear that many of the decisions that have been made whereby patients are deprived of treatment are made on financial grounds and not clinical grounds, and that is never acceptable in our view.

“Merely to send patients away because they are smokers is morally wrong and, again, contrary to the rules which I think are set by the General Medical Council.”

Mr Summers spoke of the revelations on a documentary, to be shown on ITV1 tonight.

Too Fat For Treatment, on Tonight With Trevor McDonald, examines whether or not barring patients from operations because they smoke or are overweight is medically justified or simply a cost-cutting exercise.

The programme follows the stories of Britons whose lives are consumed with pain from crumbling joints and other ailments but have been denied treatment.

Nobody from Halton and St Helens Primary Care Trust was available for comment last night.

TONIGHT with Trevor McDonald will be broadcast at 8pm on ITV 1.

jessicashaughnessy