Denying surgery to the obese is cruel, say medical chiefs
REFUSING obese people and smokers surgery is “discriminatory and cruel”, surgeons have said as they issued a landmark statement calling for the NHS policies to be halted.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges accused health authorities of taking decisions which are counter to the fundamental principles of the NHS.
The organisation – a coalition of 24 medical colleges and health faculties – said patients were increasingly being subjected to blanket bans on treatment, with lifestyle being used as an excuse to cut costs.
Prof Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, told The Daily Telegraph that patients were being left to suffer in agony, as a result of policies which were indefensible.
In recent months, clinical commissioning groups have introduced increasingly stringent restrictions – in some cases refusing all routine surgery to patients indefinitely, unless they lose weight or quit smoking.
Prof Alderson said: “Such policies are draconian and discriminatory, singling out specific groups of patients. It is cruel to keep patients who are in severe pain or, as in some cases, immobile and unable to work, waiting unnecessarily for treatment,” he said.
In many cases, patients who were obese might struggle to lose weight until they had operations – such as hip and knee replacements – which would improve mobility, the statement noted.
Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, urged health officials to heed the call from the royal colleges. “It’s deeply concerning that the NHS is increasingly choosing to play God and ration surgery on lifestyle grounds – inflicting years of pain and sickness on far too many patients,” he said.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Decisions about whether a patient has an operation or not should be clinical, made between doctor and patient.
“Blanket restrictions on treatments are unacceptable and we expect NHS England to intervene if there is evidence of rationing care and the CCG is breaching its statutory responsibility to provide services that meet the needs of the local population.”