National Obesity Audit

Nearly two-thirds of adults in England are living with overweight or obesity. A third of children leaving primary school are living with overweight or obesity. 

Obesity is a serious health concern that increases the risk of many other health conditions, including Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint problems, mental health problems, and some cancers.

NHS England have established the National Obesity Audit (NOA) as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme. 

NOA will bring together comparable data from the different types of adult and children’s weight management services across England in order to drive improvement for the benefit of those living with overweight and obesity. 

The audit will make use of data already collected from hospitals, community settings and general practices (GPs). This will include data from all weight management services and interventions commissioned (funded) by local authorities and the NHS.

Some Tier 2 and Tier 3 weight management services may need to register and start submitting to the Community Services Data Set (CSDS).

The technical guidance for Tier 2 and Tier 3 and weight management services using CSDS is now available. 

Learn more about how community providers submit to NOA.

The NOA seeks to answer seven important questions:

1. What proportion of people and which population groups living with overweight and obesity are being identified and recorded?
2. What proportion of people living with overweight and obesity have been offered appropriate NICE recommended interventions?
3. Which people living with overweight and obesity access weight management services?
4. What are the short and long term weight loss outcomes of weight management services?
5. Do people living with overweight and obesity transition successfully between the different types of weight management services available and from children’s to adult services?
6. What are the health outcomes for people living with overweight and obesity?
7. What is the coverage and provision of weight management services?

In so doing the audit aims to:

• increase the number of people living with overweight and obesity referred to and accessing weight management services
• improve equity of access to and engagement with weight management services
• improve outcomes from weight management services
• improve the transition of care from paediatric to adult services

Services and commissioners will be able to use the NOA data to deliver equitable access to effective prevention and care programmes.

Existing approvals for NHS England to collect HES and CSDS allow linkage of the data for this analysis and publication.

These data sets do not require patient consent. However, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that individuals have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data.   

The CSDS information governance and fair processing guidance includes suggested information for use in existing patient materials.

Patients can ask their GP to apply the national data opt-out to prevent their data being used for ‘purposes beyond their direct care and treatment’, such as NOA. 

We adhere to the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) cause for concern guidance and if any issues are found in the data collected we may escalate as appropriate. 

The latest publication to be released for the National Obesity Audit is now available.

This is the 4th release of data to form part of the National Obesity Audit (NOA) which now presents data from 2 sources: 

• Hospital Episode Statistics (for Tier 4 Bariatric Surgery)
• Community Services Dataset (for Tier 2 and Tier 3 Weight Management Services)

This publication series includes a developing set of nationally agreed measures which will eventually provide a comprehensive picture of activity, access to services and health outcomes of patients using weight management services across England. This allows providers to track, benchmark and improve the quality of these services.

We have also made some improvements to the dashboard following feedback received by users. Please keep providing your opinions and feedback using the feedback form.

All previous and future releases of the dashboard will add data from other sources and include additional functionality. All updates will be added to the publication page.

The audit will also be publishing a state of nation report, in 2024.

Webinars

You can find recorded sessions of previous webinars and drop-in sessions held for Tier 2 and 3 weight management services using the Community Services Data Set (CSDS).

We will also be holding a webinar session to assist on using the dashboard publication upon its release.

For further information or if you have any queries please contact:

• Telephone: 0300 303 5678
• Email: [email protected]