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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY S. PITMAN OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 7th JUNE 2011
Question
Would the Minister provide an estimate of the cost to the Health Service over the last ten years of treating illnesses and health issues relating to obesity and further still, the costs relating to the treatment of diabetes and illnesses/conditions linked to poor diets?
Answer
No country has accurately identified the exact cost of treating obesity. Even though we have a better understanding of the prevalence of obesity within populations, the associated costs relating to health care and treatment are far from clear. Given these challenges estimates of the healthcare cost of obesity vary according to different studies.
A recent systematic review[1] which aimed to assess the current published literature on the direct costs associated with obesity concluded that obesity was estimated to account for 0.7% (from a French study) to 2.8% (from a US study) of a country's total healthcare expenditure.
Estimates for the UK NHS costs also vary. For example in the modelling study[2] undertaken to inform the Foresight report[3] a figure of 6% is quoted as the projected proportion of NHS cost for treating obesity in 2007. However in Scotland the treatment cost was estimated at 2% in its Strategy[4] on preventing and treatment of obesity. Even making crude extrapolations from these estimates to the HSSD budget is problematic as the HSSD budget does not include GP costs (as in the UK) but does include social services expenditure which is excluded from the above studies.
In a previous written question to the minister about the cost of obesity (by the Deputy of St. Mary which was tabled on Tuesday 5th April 2011) a figure of £1.5m was estimated for the direct cost
for treating obesity locally. This figure was extrapolated from a report from the National Obesity Observatory The Economic Burden of Obesity, October 2010. This figure remains our best estimate.