Now NHS can’t tell patients they weigh too much

NHS staff are being forced to tip-toe their way around the issue of patients’ weight after complaints were made about their treatment.

Some people became upset at being “fat-shamed” by doctors, nurses and paramedics.

But a health campaigner said “tough love” is sometimes needed in the battle against obesity.

One patient complained after she was told there was not a toilet in the hospital big enough for her.

And another complained that an ambulance crew said she could have got up off the floor if she had not been so overweight.

The cases show how “softlysoftly” medics have to go when dealing with obese patients who are sensitive about their weight – even when size could be the cause of their health issues.

A Freedom of Information Act survey of NHS trusts revealed 97 complaints relating to the issue of weight were lodged with managers last year.

At the University Hospital of North Tees an apology was given to a patient who was told by a consultant that pain relief would not help her condition and what she needed was to “help herself” by losing weight and exercising.

Portsmouth Hospitals said sorry to the mother of a patient who complained after a consultant called her child fat.

Another patient was referred to as “overweight and unfit” by a consultant at Oxford University Hospitals, who apologised but disputed the wording.

A fertility consultant at North West Anglia NHS Trust told an overweight patient that “she did not want to see ee the patient there again gain until her BMI MI [body mass index] had reached 30 or she got pregnant, whichever came first”. At East Midlands Ambulance Service, staff got in trouble after telling ling an obese patient nt who had fallen that if she were “slimmer and fitter” she could have got off the floor herself.

And a doctor at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay told a patient they were overweight and should not be eating snacks and chocolate.

A nurse at the same trust had a complaint lodged against her for allegedly telling a patient “you’re too fat to use any toilet in this hospital”. East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Trust had a case where a doctor told a patient who needed surgery that they should “lose weight and exercise”, and another where a doctor said the patient was “too fat to be diagnosed with a specific disease”.

Whittington Health NHS Trust in north London had a complaint from a patient who said they were told to leave the X-ray department and lose weight.

West Midlands Ambulance Service had a complaint from a patient who was told “if you lost weight you wouldn’t have problems with your knees”.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “It is vital that health professions be able to deliver ‘tough love’ to their patients and be honest with them if they believe that patients should know they have a weight problem and how it should be treated.”

But he added: “It is equally vital that they should be trained in the language to use and how their words could be misinterpreted.”