Specialist weight management

Referrals

Referrals primarily come from GPs but are also currently accepted from secondary care teams within our hospitals, such as the Diabetes, Sleep Clinic and Physiotherapy departments

The access criteria for the service to be able to accept referrals is:

• BMI above 50

OR

• BMI above 40 and one or more medical conditions from an agreed list which could be improved or better managed with weight loss

About the service

The Specialist Weight Management Service (SWMS) is a small, multidisciplinary service for patients living with obesity and is provided by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The service is psychologist led and includes specialist dietitians who provide a high level of support for patients to promote and maintain weight loss in order to improve health and quality of life.

The team

Our small and friendly team is made up of:

• Consultant Endocrinologist
• Specialist Psychologists
• Specialist Dietitians
• Specialist Nurse
• Clerical Support Staff
• Student Dietitians on clinical placement

Current service provision

We are not currently seeing our patients face to face; instead, we use video or telephone calling.

We are all based at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and look to support you with a non-judgemental, whole person approach, taking time to get to know you and what makes your weight difficult for you personally.

Assessment Appointments

• Once a referral has been accepted, patients are offered assessment appointments so that clinicians can understand their challenges with weight.
• Once the information is collected, the clinicians can see if now is a good time for treatment, or if other steps need to be taken first.
• If the clinicians feel that our service is not a good fit for your needs, recommendations will made to your GP about what else might help your weight.

Treatment

• Most people will be offered our standard pathway, which is a weight management group delivered online.
• Appointments in group treatments run fortnightly and typically last 1hr 45 mins, with a planned break.
• Our groups are small and friendly; we do not weigh you, we ask you to self-report your weight and we do not discuss your weight with others in the group.
• During treatment, we take a non-prescriptive approach (we won’t tell you what to do) and we don’t focus on the use of weighing scales as the only outcome measure; we look at other benefits of our treatment programmes e.g. quality of life, confidence, mobility, self-esteem, self-care

Current Service Delays

Unfortunately, we have a considerable waiting list for access to this Service and apologise for any distress and frustration this wait may cause. We have an extensive backlog, which was initially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but has been further impacted by staff shortages and an extreme increase in the number of referrals to our service.

In response to these challenges, we are doing all that we can to improve the situation for both our patients and our staff.

Weight Loss Medications Update

The new GLP-1 injectable weight loss medications e.g., Saxenda, Semaglutide/ Wegovy have recently received much press attention. Unfortunately, however:

• Saxenda is not currently commissioned locally
• Wegovy is not yet available on the NHS nationally
• This Service is not currently in a position to provide these medicines as part of patient care

When these medications become available, they will be subject to locally agreed criteria and your GP will need to check that you meet these criteria (when they have been published and referral routes to a dedicated service have been agreed).

As a consequence, the rollout of these medications has been delayed indefinitely. All GPs and SWMS will be updated by the One Gloucestershire Integrated Care System if this changes.

Contact Us

Our office hours are: 8am – 4pm, Monday – Friday (excluding bank holidays)

• You can email us at: ghn-tr.swms.team@nhs.net
• You can call us on: 0300 422 6174 (we have a voicemail service which is regularly monitored during working hours)

What our patients say about us

“My whole life has changed - I am more outgoing and confident. I am able to enjoy life to the full whereas before, I was just existing. Be open minded and listen and think about the advice and help given - enjoy the journey one step at a time; be strong - believe you can achieve.”

“I found the service to be valuable because it’s not so much about losing pounds or inches but changing attitudes that we have towards food. If these can be changed then the pounds take care of themselves.”

Weight Loss Surgery

If weight loss surgery (also known as bariatric surgery) is something you are considering, this will be discussed during your initial appointments. This will include eligibility, treatment pathways to surgery and behaviours required to be in place before surgery will be considered.

Here are some video links on bariatric surgery here at Gloucestershire Hospitals