NHS is dealing with 3,000 ward admissions for obesity EVERY DAY with patient numbers doubling in just six years
- New NHS data shows a record 1.2 obesity-related hospital admissions per year
- This is twice as many as in 2016/17, when there were 617,000 admissions
- Britain's obesity crisis is now costing us £100 billion a year
New data shows the NHS is dealing with 3,000 obesity-related admissions every day, twice as many as six years ago.
The latest NHS Digital data for England shows a record 1.2 million admissions to hospitals where obesity was a factor in 2022/2023, up from 617,000 in 2016/17 – or the equivalent of as many as 3,000 per day.
The 1.2 million figure includes almost 9,000 cases where obesity was the main reason for admissions, most of which were for bariatric surgery such as gastric bypasses, The Times reported.
In several hundred thousand admissions, obesity was attributed to a patient's stay in hospital or to complicating treatment.
Nearly 8,300 children under 16 were admitted to hospital due to obesity, more than double the 4,062 in 2016/17.
The latest NHS Digital data for England shows a record 1.2 million admissions to hospitals where obesity was a factor in 2022/2023 (File image)
Those in poorer areas were twice as likely to be taken to hospital for obesity-related problems than those in wealthier areas. In the ten most deprived areas of England there were almost 3,400 admissions per 100,000 people due to obesity, more than double the 1,430 in the richest ten.
Luton had the worst figures, with the city having almost 4,900 admissions per 100,000.
Gloucestershire, Southampton, Salford, Rotherham, Bradford and much of east London all had rates above 4,000. Bracknell Forest in Berkshire had an admission rate of 420 per 100,000, while Windsor, Wokingham, Slough, Oxfordshire, Reading and Brighton had rates under 1,000.
Pregnant women are most likely to have obesity as a complicating factor, with 147,143 maternity admissions where obesity was a problem for mothers or children.
The new data comes after it emerged that Britain's obesity crisis is now costing the country almost £100 billion a year, according to a shock analysis that has led to calls for ministers to tackle the scourge of junk food with the same aggressiveness as smoking.
Two-thirds of all adults are now fat, compared to just half in the mid-1990s. Of these, a quarter are overweight.
Until now, the fully reversible problem was thought to cost Britain around £60 billion.
This figure included the cost of the knock-on effects of obesity and the impact on the NHS, as well as secondary costs such as lost income due to time off work due to illness and premature deaths.