Wednesday, 30 May 2012

200 fattest Britons 'cost NHS £16 million a year'

Weighing in at 35 stone or more leaves them bed-ridden and needing four visits a day from healthcare assistants.

Together with medication, it brings their cost to the health service to £80,000 a year, according to a newspaper.

The total figure for looking after such patients could be even more than £16 million as the recorded number of 200 includes only those patients that the health service has been monitoring.

It is not known how many are supported by the social care system rather than the clinics and hospitals who record weight data, The Sun reported.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: "The number of super-obese people who are housebound is in the hundreds.

"They are hidden in the care system and no one knows exactly how many there are. It really is a tragedy."

The problem was starkly illustrated last week when 19-year-old Georgia Davis, described as Britain's fattest teenager at 63st had to be taken to hospital for treatment related to obesity, in an operation involving 40 emergency workers.

Her home in Aberdare, south Wales, had to be partially demolished to free her.

Half of all Britons are classed as obese or overweight, with obesity and related illnesses costing the NHS more than £4 billion a year.

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