Patients Association responds to report indicating that smokers and the obese are being wrongly denied surgery

5 May 2016 10:06 AM

The RCS has discovered that more than one in three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England are delaying or denying routine surgery – such as hip and knee replacements – to smokers and overweight patients, in contravention of national clinical guidance. 

Responding to this, Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: 

“Withholding surgery for these patients is unjustified. We suspect that cash-strapped CCGs are using the fact that people are smokers or overweight as a way of avoiding the cost of undertaking surgery. This seems like an underhand way of CCG’s improving their financial forecasts at the price of the patients.” 

Notes to Editors:

• The RCS report ‘Smokers and overweight patients: soft targets for NHS savings?’ (https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news/docs/smokers-and-overweight-patients-soft-targets-for.pdf) used FOI requests to discover widespread restricting of surgery on the basis of weight or smoking status by the commissioning policies of CCGs in England compared to NICE guidance, RCS and surgical specialty associations (SSAs). The RCS found that over a third (34%) of the 200 CCGs that responded to the FOI requests have one or more policies on BMI level or smoking status which stop overweight patients or smokers being referred for routine surgery. More than a fifth (22%) of CCGs are placing mandatory weight thresholds on referral to hip and knee replacement surgery – an increase on data acquired in 2014 showing 13% of CCGs employed such policies.
• The Patients Association is an independent national health and social care charity established over 52 years ago, which has a long history of campaigning to ensure that the voice of patients is heard within the UK Health and Social care system.
• For further information please contact Deborah McDonald on 020 8423 9111, or email deborah@patients-association.com or call 07779 004898. Visit our website at www.patients-association.org.uk