12:52pm Thursday 12th November 2009
By Phil Hill
TAUNTON’S Musgrove Park Hospital has been earmarked as the only regional centre commissioned to provide the full range of obesity surgery services.
It has been awarded level one status by the South West Specialist Commissioning Group and will see a significant increase in the amount of bariatric surgery performed there.
Richard Welbourn, consultant surgeon and clinical lead for the bariatric service, said: “Last year we carried out 173 operations at Musgrove, a mixture of gastric bypasses and insertion of gastric bands.
“This year we will increase that to 275, and we have also been asked to take on an additional 90 cases, while the other level two and three centres are preparing for their work.
“The Musgrove service was also recently declared an International Centre of Excellence by the Surgical Review Corporation, one of only two such centres of excellence outside the United States.”
Most patients undergo laparoscopic or keyhole surgery.
Suzanne Sinclair, a patient at Musgrove in 2007, said: “Before I had the operation I was 26st 8lb.
“After two years I’d got down to 11st 4lb.
“I’ve put on a bit more now, but that’s good news as well as I’m pregnant.
“We’d been trying to get pregnant for about five years, but we weren’t successful until I got my weight down.
“The baby is due in mid-December.”
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