BOMSS changes name to include all obesity specialists

Bariatric News spoke with Professor Ahmed Ahmed (Associate Professor in Metabolic Surgery and Lead Bariatric Surgeon at Imperial College London), about the current status of bariatric surgery in the UK, his hopes and aims as the new President of the British Obesity and Metabolic Specialist Society and why the society has changed its name…

“Current procedure numbers of metabolic and bariatric surgery in the UK have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. According to our National Bariatric Surgery Registry there were over 7000 procedures performed in 2019 and 5,000 performed in 2024,” he explained. “In the private sector, there has been a drastic reduction in bariatric surgery activity in the UK with some surgeons seeing a reduction of 80% in surgical procedures.”

Professor Ahmed said that the reduction in private cases is not associated with the pandemic but more to do with an increase in the number of patients taking the new generation of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists.

Regarding the NHS, he added that initially after the pandemic, there were fewer bariatric cases being performed as there was a significant backlog of other non-bariatric procedures that took priority. However, three years on he believes that an inertia has crept in into healthcare post-pandemic and most hospitals and services, especially in surgery specialties are not as slick as they were pre-pandemic.

“In addition, certain specialties will always be underfunded. Sadly, when it comes to managing obesity, it has been and continues to be underfunded. We need more bariatric units, surgeons and allied healthcare professionals to be able to even make a dent in the obesity pandemic. At the moment, the money and resources are just not being made available.”

There are approximately 4.2 million people in the UK who meet the NHS’ criteria for bariatric surgery, but with only 5,000 procedures performed in 2024, the UK is operating on 0.01% of the those who are eligible. He explained that GLP-1s have not really impacted NHS bariatric procedure levels as NHS England have only recently (June 2025), approved the use Mounjaro at the level of primary care. Mounjaro is being used in a very targeted way – only those with a BMI over 40 and with at least four obesity-related complications are eligible.

Ahmed Ahmed (Credit: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust)

“One of the aims of my Presidency is to work with our obesity physicians and the rest of the MDTs to develop guidance to find out when should we use drugs, when should we use surgery, when we should use both. At the moment, we've just set up a working group to develop a position statement from BOMSS to answer those questions because we get asked all the time by primary care physicians about which treatment for obesity should they be referring their patients for.  So, we hope the guidance, which will hopefully be released in the next few months, will help general practitioners with a proposed treatment algorithm.”

In addition to developing the algorithm, Professor Ahmed is keen to generate a greater evidence synthesis through the Society’s membership via research trials to work out what is the most clinically and cost-effective treatment in the NHS for managing obesity. In fact, BOMSS has just endorsed a multi-centre randomised controlled trial that's currently going through the application phase comparing bariatric surgery versus weight loss medicines for managing obesity in the NHS.

“We need to know which treatments are more clinically effective but also cost effective, as that will help to determine the most efficient use of limited NHS limited resources. Should the NHS fund more medicines, or endoscopic bariatric therapy, or bariatric surgery?  We need to generate scientifically rigorous evidence to answer these questions.

Specialist Society

The British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society has for years looked after the interests of patients who are going to be managed with obesity surgery, as well as looking after the interests of bariatric surgeons and healthcare professionals involved in the surgical pathway (ie. psychologists, psychiatrists, dietitians, nurse practitioners). However, with the emergence of really effective medical treatments there are addition groups of doctors and healthcare professionals who will be treating and managing those living with obesity. To reflect this change, BOMSS has changed from a ‘Surgical’ to a ‘Specialist’ society.

“I really felt it was time for our society to expand our horizons and not just be a surgical society, but be far more inclusive and also represent the interests of healthcare professionals, such as general practitioners dealing with obesity, hospital physicians and specialists and endocrinologists dealing with obesity, and now pharmacists as they're able to prescribe these drugs. All our colleagues require a professional body that can look after their interests, lobby government on their behalf, arrange regular national meetings, support training and research, etc.

“I also want to invite and encourage more pharmaceutical industry partners to support BOMSS and get them more involved in our organisation, come to our meetings, work with us and, tell us how we can help them with our expertise,” he concluded. “We are a special organisation with access to the key leaders in the field weight management, whether it's surgeons or physicians or dietitians or psychologists or nurses or anaesthetists. There are so many people who are living with obesity in the UK and patients who are struggling to get treatment whether that’s through medications, surgery or endoscopic therapies. One of the objectives of BOMSS is to be the primary organisation representing the voice of all those specialists who are helping manage patients living with obesity, we want industry to know we are here representing them all ”