Evaluation of Tier 3 Specialist Weight Management Service
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An evaluation of patient and staff experiences and implementation of a Tier 3 Specialist Weight Management Service offered by the NHS
IRAS ID
333254
Contact name
Mackenzie Fong
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University Research Sponsorship
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, 0 days
Research summary
The NHS operates a tiered care weight management pathway, comprised of 4 tiers, from universal interventions in Tier 1, to bariatric surgery in Tier 4. Tier 3 weight management services involve specialist weight management clinics which provide non-surgical intensive medical management for patients. One such service, based in South Tees NHS Trust (Specialist Weight Management Service (SWMS)), delivered over 12 months. Additional funding has been secured for this Tier 3 SWMS to be expanded. This service needs evaluation to provide evidence of impact. The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East & North Cumbria (NENC) will undertake evaluation of these services, using routine data collected from the National Obesity Audit (NOA), and by collecting some additional qualitative and quantitative data.
As part of this service evaluation, we will collect and utilise process outcomes (collected as part of NOA), health outcomes (collected as part of NOA), health economics analysis and conduct qualitative interviews with patients (sample of those enrolled) and staff working as part of the service. For process and health outcome data, analysis will be conducted by North of England Commissioning Support Unit (NECS), and the Newcastle University research team will only have access to aggregate-level data. The collection of process and health outcomes fall within the remit of a service evaluation and therefore do not require HRA ethical approval.
We are seeing ethical approval to conduct patient and staff interviews (Work package (WP) a), and for the addition of a healthcare usage survey for health economics analysis (WPb) as additional elements of the service evaluation. The work outlined here aims to provide a real-world understanding of the experiences of patients referred to and enrolled in the SWMS, as well as perspectives from staff working as part of the SMWS, on the impact and fidelity of the service.
REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/PR/0657
Date of REC Opinion
8 Jul 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion