Severely obese Doncaster people to receive special treatment

This service is only available for people with severe or complex obesity who are considering bariatric (weight loss) surgery. To qualify for T3WMS, individuals must have a body mass index (BMI) of above 35, with the presence of diabetes or other significant conditions, or instead a BMI of over 40, without health-related conditions.

Recent figures released in November 2018 showed that in Doncaster, 71.5% of adults aged 18 and over are classed as overweight or obese compared to the national average of 61.3%. Almost a quarter (23%) of children aged between four and five years old and over a third (35.8%) of children aged 10 and 11 years are overweight or very overweight.

A multi-disciplinary team (MDT) at DBTH, led by dietitians and including  cognitive behaviour psychotherapist, physiotherapist and clinical therapy assistants, worked very hard to secure delivery of the service, supported by other colleagues including the Trust’s Strategy and Transformation team.

Funded and commissioned by Doncaster Council, service requirements state that the successful bid would have to demonstrate a model of care based upon a diverse, varied and appropriately trained MDT, capable of delivering the following for patients:

An initial assessment consultation with the service user

Development of a 12-month package of tailored and group-based interventions

Service-user education and advice on nutrition, healthy lifestyles and bariatric surgery

Ensuring service-users have access to: Psychological, physical activity and physiotherapy services, in addition to assessment, treatment and optimisation of obesity-related conditions and illnesses (such as type two diabetes).

Working within the Trust’s Quality Improvement (Qi) methodology, the team collating the bid worked together to understand the service model requirements and came up with ideas on how enhancements could be implemented in a timely manner to meet the new specification.

All this information was pulled into a submission which was submitted at the start of December. Just before Christmas the Trust was notified by commissioners that it had been successful and will continue to provide the T3WMS service for a further two years.

Suzanne Bolam, Head of Therapies at the Trust, said: ''I am delighted with our success in this tender and being able to build on our existing service to provide specialist weight management services for Doncaster. Obesity is one of the biggest challenges to collectively address across all sectors and this specialist team is a key part of this work to support our local population. The team worked very hard to submit a great bid and I want to thank them all for their continued enthusiasm and hard work.''

DBTH is aiming to be one of the safest trusts in England. To achieve this goal, staff are encouraged to embrace Qi practice and methods. To aid in this wider ambition, there are further projects and enhancements to services currently being worked through.