Slimming World on Referral... a powerful practical partnership
Slimming World on Referral is a long-established partnership
scheme between health professionals and Slimming World, providing
overweight patients with effective, long-lasting, community-based
weight loss management.
Health Practitioners looking for weight loss management
programmes can refer patients to Slimming World groups, offering
them free membership, ordinarily in blocks of 12 weeks. The cost is paid by Public Health teams or Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and subsidised by Slimming World, making this
a very cost-effective intervention.
The first weight management company to actively support the
building of partnerships with the NHS, Slimming World pioneered
its 'Slimming on Referral' scheme with Southern Derbyshire Health
Authority in 2000. This partnership scheme was set up to provide
patients with regular weight loss support alongside appointments
with primary care. Our pilot with Derbyshire (Lavin et al, 2006,
Public Health) proved that a commercial weight loss management
company could offer an effective solution to reduce overweight
and obesity levels in the community. The pilot scheme provided
recognition of service quality, patient satisfaction and value
for money. It has proven to be an effective, low cost solution to
the NHS with over 180 schemes having been established and more
than 210,000 patient referrals having taken place in the past thirteen
years.
Data from our recently published study on 34,271 patients
referred by the NHS to Slimming World show that of those who
completed the course:
- 25.4% were considered morbidly obese (BMI>40)
- Average attendance was 8.9 weeks (of 12)
- 58.1% completed the programme (10 of 12 weeks)
- Average weight loss of completers was 5.5% (4.0% across total
population)
- 54.7% of completers lost > 5% bodyweight (35.8% of total
population)
- Non-completers attended an average of 5.3 weeks and lost 1.8%
of bodyweight
(Obesity Facts Vol.4 Issue 2, April 2011
pp.113-120)
Patient satisfaction and benefits
Patients are regularly surveyed to assess satisfaction levels and wider benefits of the referral service:
- 97% of referred patients report being satisfied with the service Slimming World has provided
- 96% report finding the groups enjoyable
- 75% of referred patients tell us they plan to continue attending a Slimming World group after their referral
- 91% say they feel better about themselves as a result of the referral