Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have figures to support the statement made by the Chief Executive of NHS England in July that the National Health Service needs to tackle obesity among its employees.

The Department does not hold current data on the number of National Health Service staff who are obese. In 2009, the Department estimated in ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People: One Year On’ that of 1.2 million staff in the NHS, 700,000 were likely to be obese or overweight.

NHS England plan to publish their Five Year Forward View later this month. Proposals for the plan include incentives to ensure the NHS as an employer sets a national example in the support it offers its own 1.3 million staff to stay healthy, and serve as “health ambassadors” in their local communities.