NHS to tell fat patients to lose weight if they want an operation as part of new approach

OBESE patients have been banned from having NHS operations.

Anyone with a Body Mass Index of 30 or above for a year will have to shed ten per cent of their weight to get treatment.

The move has been announced by the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group in North Yorkshire.

The service provider has also banned smokers who refuse to quit from having non-life-threatening procedures such as joint ops for six months.

Trade body NHS Providers, which represents parts of the ambulance and community services sectors, said the move could become the norm.

Head Chris Hopson said: “It is the only way providers are going to be able to balance their books, and in a way you have to applaud their honesty.

"The service is bursting at the seams.”

The ban will not apply to cancer patients or those with conditions that could become life-threatening.

It comes just months after NHS England admitted that its provider sector overspent by £2.45billion last year.

The situation could worsen as junior doctors across England and Wales carry out five-day strike action every month until 2017 over a weekend pay row.

The Royal College of Surgeons said Vale of York’s new rules were the “most severe the modern NHS has seen”.