"BSOL Birmingham Weight management"

After waiting nigh on 18 months for an appointment from the point my GP referred me to when I get an appointment, I found the whole process from start to finish shambolic, disappointing and very misleading.

The GP led me to believe medication and intensive support would be provided by the specialist weight management services, so I waited and tried to persevere until I was seen.

Poor communication from when you ring up to ask re: the wait time , what will happen during the appointment and what services are available seemed to be shrouded in  mystery or staff did not know or could not be got hold off.

After waiting 18 months only to be brought into a room with 7 or 8 other patients to have a group discussion and presentation and then to be told no medication is available and in order to continue with the services  all that can be offered is an online  1 hour session that you may be able to be commenced on in 6 weeks or so time.

Why did we not start this whilst we were on the wait list? 

16 weeks later an appointment was provided despite more than 6 emails and 4 phone calls to follow up when I would start.

The sessions are not run by a dietician but an assistant. Although convenient as it is run virtually, the first 15minutes of the 1 hour session is taken up by checking people’s attendance- what a waste of time surely administration tasks should not impede or reduce time spent on clinical care - just take a recurs of whom appears on the screen and check them In when the session has finished .

Some useful discussions are had but it is a poor replacement of actual medical support as often people who have got to this point in their weight loss journey are in need of more intense and more medicalised support as they have multiple Co morbidities.

I have written to both the PALS , CEO of Heartlands and my MP and no one can give me any answers as to when medication will be available and why BSOl chose not to follow national guidelines.

The Nice national guidelines advise that medical treatment should be offered to all who fall within specifics categories , GPs are stating in their websites  do not ask for medication because we can not prescribe it. Consultants are stating their funding has been stopped by BSOL commissioners. 

Despite asking my GP for alternatives of cheaper well known oral medications which has been backed up by an email from my consultant, the GP just pushes back saying it is outside their scope.

No one seems willing or able to help and slowly I feel more and more health problems are appearing and I have only 1 hourly session every 6 weeks and only 45 minutes of that session allows any support to be provided.

So many medical conditions can be reversed or improved by providing medical treatment to reduce obesity - high blood pressure raised cholesterol  diabetes cancer heart disease and the need for joint replacement can all be reduced and the funding spent on these utilised for other struggling NHS services. It seems a very backward approach to care. I dread to think the number of patients on these long waiting lists that may have died whilst waiting .