As the nation gets fatter and fatter, surgery is tipping the scales in Halton as the solution of choice to tackle obesity. With people choosing life-threatening operations to control their diet, reporter CLAIRE LANE finds out whether anything more can be done to save the NHS money - and prevent the overeating problem from spiralling out of control.
SURGERY for obesity is costing Halton Primary Care Trust (PCT) more than £70,000 a year when far less money is being spent on trying to prevent it.
Dr Daniel Seddon, director of public health for Halton, has spoken out against the obscene amount of cash being used to provide fat patients with drastic and often life-threatening operations.
He says distressing measures such as stomach-stapling are often an extreme reaction to weight-gain when the focus should always be placed on controlling diet.
Women from Runcorn and Widnes are far more likely than men to request to go under the knife - and the problem is likely to get worse as the national waistline continues to expand.
Between January and September this year, there have been eight new requests for obesity surgery. Of these, six have been fully approved by members of the PCT. Surgery and expensive drug treatments prescribed by doctors are normally considered the last resort when a person has tried to improve their situation and has sunk into depression.
But the cost of the two major obesity drugs prescribed to patients over the past year in Halton amounts to nearly £1,000.
It is being argued that the NHS should invest more time and money in preventative measures, such as introducing people to weight loss courses.
If people are educated about diet and nutrition, the problem of obesity could be killed in its infancy.
Dr Seddon said: 'It's about encouraging people to lead a more active lifestyle and adjust their diet so they're not consuming too many fats, salts or sugars.
'Surgery isn't dealing with the cause of the problem, either for the individual or the community as a whole.
'For the individual, surgery is not dealing with the issue of why somebody eats more than they need.
'And for the wider community, investing in surgery is only helping a small number of individuals when it should be about making choices about the way we live.
'There are programmes in Halton which offer cost-effective alternatives to surgery, such as the Heart of Mersey project, which looks at lifestyle change to combat coronary heart disease and links to obesity.
'The 5-A-Day programme is also an excellent project which provides value for money.
'It is so effective that each extra daily portion of fruit that is eaten has the capacity to reduce an individual's likelihood of getting cancer over the next 10 years by 5%.'
He added: 'The situation as it is now is crazy.
'I would like it to be easier for a GP in health services to give more than just medical treatments and expensive drug treat-ments to patients and instead support people who are overweight.
'It shouldn't be as simple as just writing someone a prescription and referring them on to surgery.
'We've got to be looking at the wider picture, towards something much more effective than that which uses up less resources.'
To qualify for surgery, a patient must have a certain body mass according to their height and weight. The good news for Halton as a borough is that overall obesity rates for the region are no higher than the national average.
The operations focus around cutting off food supply to either the stomach or part of the intestine and are considered to be dangerous procedures.
Individual price list for morbid obesity surgery at Aintree Hospital: Laparoscopic gastric bypass - £10,000 Open gastric bypass - £12,855 Laparoscopic gastric banding - £14,105 Duodenal Switch - £15,105
Sarah Johnson, the public health manager for Halton PCT, said: 'In theory, the cost of obesity drugs means that if there was a population of 100,000 people registered with their GP in Halton, the total cost of these drugs would amount to £962,000.
'The British Medical Journal Clinical Evidence concise report shows that these interventions produce only a modest weight loss from these drugs.
'This raises the question as to whether the drugs for obesity provide value for money compared to potential preventative schemes.'
Experts estimate obesity-related diseases will cost the NHS up to £3.6billion a year by 2010.
Doctors agree obesity can have a devastating impact on a person's social, physical and emotional wellbeing and often leads to complications such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart disease and stroke.
There are strict guidelines laid down by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence before people can actually qualify for surgery.
People applying for referral must be over 18 years old, must have received treatment in a specialist obesity clinic and must have tried all other non-surgical means of treatment.
The surgery process involves a long-term follow-up by doctors and other health professionals.
