Weight Loss Expert says NHS could save millions by reducing Gastric Band operations

A Leading Weight Loss Hypnotherapy expert Claire Hegarty has said the NHS could save millions of pounds of public money each year and help the economy gain 1.3 billion pounds over three years by reducing Gastric Band operations which cost on average £8,500 and instead introduce a cheaper and safer option to lose weight using Weight Loss Hypnotherapy which can be done at your local doctors surgery.

Unfortunately the UK is well known for Obesity with the United Kingdom having the third highest weight problem in the world with 23% of people living in the UK being overweight with the USA being first with 30.6% and Mexico being second with 24.2% and Claire feels the government and the NHS need to do more to reduce these figures and not only help Britain become known for being a healthy country with less health problems but also to help reduce the burden on the NHS with related Obesity problems.

Claire would like to see a large increase in the number of people being treated for Obesity which will help save the NHS millions of pounds each year by reducing hospital costs and prescriptions cost caused by related obesity illnesses, but Claire also feels that Weight Loss Hypnotherapy which can be offered at local NHS doctors is not only safer and cheaper  it would also help convince people who have a fear of operations to come forward and have the non surgical treatment to help them reduce their weight problem and improve their health, hence saving the NHS even more money in the long run than the Gastric Band operation does.

Gastric Band operations have become huge news with patients delighted at the weight they have lost, but Gastric Bands operations have also come under fire recently with people claiming they have had major complications with the operation which has resulted in one person losing her marriage after the operation caused her major pain problems which resulted in the Gastric Band having to be taken out, causing more expense on the NHS. Other complications have included patients dying as a result of the gastric Band operation showing that the operation is not 100% safe. This is one of the reasons why the department of Health have warned people that the surgery does carry a risk and people must only use it as a last resort.

According to research there are a range of post-operative problems reported with gastric bands, and according to research over 80% of patients will experience one or more of the following symptoms:

Nausea and vomiting (50%)
Reflux or regurgitation of food (35%)
Slipped band (25%)
Obstruction or blockage (15%)
Constipation
Diarrhoea
Difficulty swallowing

If these complications cause you serious discomfort your band may need to be adjusted or removed. This involves further surgery, exposing you to all the associated risks once again and causing the NHS extra costs.

Claire explained: “whilst its important to do what is right for the individual having a gastric band alone is a purely physical intervention and doesn’t address the mental and emotional aspects of why a person is over weight.”

She continued: “Huge assumptions are often made about a person being over weight and its as simple as them just eating less – and why do they do this to themselves – why cant they just stop eating so much – if it was just as simple as eating less no one would ever be over weight and everyone would be at their perfect weight and as we can see this isn’t the case. I would say weight loss problems are 90% in the mind and food as a symptom of what is going on at the mental and emotional level – we need to address this first before the lasting and true weight loss can come…. if you think that if someone is anorexic they are classed as having an eating disorder and there is a lot of help out there for the person…. those who are over weight would also say that they in many ways have an eating disorder, they eat when they are not hungry, when they are sad, happy, to punish themselves, through boredom – more people eat to change how they feel than because they are hungry – the same reason people drink or take drugs  – so weight problems can also be classed as an easting disorder – so why is there not the same help out there for people? If a person doesn’t address their bad habits, doesn’t address why they over eat, why they eat for the wrong reasons, why they eat the wrong food etc then simply having the gastric band cant address these areas as it is a physical intervention…it has been shown many times that the band does do its job from a purely physical approach and if the person doesn’t have the right relationship with both themselves and with food, the person can still eat the same food and mush it up into liquid, they can still over eat and stretch the band or for some they lose weight and are then afraid to eat anything – none of these options are really giving the person the quality of life they deserve, with weight loss hypnotherapy we can address all of these areas so a person understands themselves, their body, their habits, removes unwanted habits and behaviors, removes why they are eating other than for hunger, is in the right place for them, they get their control back and lose weight easily and happily.”

 
Claire believes the that the government should start a healthy campaign to have more people come forward to have treatment for their weight problems and believes that the NHS requirement for treatment should be reduced to help more people who do not fit in the current criteria.

If the government started a campaign to increase the number of people who received treatment for their Obesity issue then it is claimed the government could save between 35 million and 150 million pounds in welfare payments as people were able to return to work, this is on top of the money they would be saving the NHS each year with less people needing medical treatment related to obesity.

Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which advises the government on the cost-effectiveness of drugs and medical treatments, recommends that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more, or those with a BMI of 35 or more and other serious illnesses, should be assessed for weight-loss treatment.

As well as offering weight loss hypnotherapy through the hospital and the local NHS doctors, Claire would like to see more education brought together for children at school to help them learn more about healthy food and would also like to see more time dedicated to P.E lessons and help motivate young children to exercise more which will then be embedded into them through adult hood helping to reduce the obesity academic and reduce the burden on the NHS.