Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of branded weight loss programmes in achieving healthy and sustainable weight loss.

The Department and Public Health England (PHE) have not made a direct assessment of the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of branded weight management programmes.

The Department and PHE supports theNational Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) public health guidance on ‘Managing overweight and obesity in adults – lifestyle weight management services', which makes recommendations on the provision of effective multi-component lifestyle weight management services for adults who are overweight or obese. This includes the recommendations that the commissioning of such services is based on the effectiveness of the programme as outlined in the NICE guidance.