National Obesity Audit
The National Obesity Audit (NOA) brings together data to drive improvement in quality of care available to those living with overweight and obesity in England.
The GP Practices are required and are participating in national obesity audit. Please see the details below
For more information visit:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/clinical-audits-and-registries/national-obesity-audit
National Obesity Audit: NHS England Transparency Notice
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/clinical-audits-and-registries/national-obesity-audit/transparency-notice
Overview of the audit
Nearly two-thirds of adults in England are living with overweight or obesity. A third of children leaving primary school are living with overweight or obesity.
Obesity is a serious health concern that increases the risk of many other health conditions, including Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint problems, mental health problems, and some cancers.
NHS England have established the National Obesity Audit (NOA) as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme.
NOA will bring together comparable data from the different types of adult and children’s weight management services across England in order to drive improvement for the benefit of those living with overweight and obesity.
Services included in the audit
The audit will make use of data already collected from hospitals, community settings and general practices (GPs). This will include data from all weight management services and interventions commissioned (funded) by local authorities and the NHS.
Some Tier 2 and Tier 3 weight management services may need to register and start submitting to the Community Services Data Set (CSDS).
The technical guidance for Tier 2 and Tier 3 and weight management services using CSDS is now available.
Learn more about how community providers submit to NOA.
Objectives of the audit
The NOA seeks to answer seven important questions:
- What proportion of people and which population groups living with overweight and obesity are being identified and recorded?
- What proportion of people living with overweight and obesity have been offered appropriate NICE recommended interventions?
- Which people living with overweight and obesity access weight management services?
- What are the short and long term weight loss outcomes of weight management services?
- Do people living with overweight and obesity transition successfully between the different types of weight management services available and from children’s to adult services?
- What are the health outcomes for people living with overweight and obesity?
- What is the coverage and provision of weight management services?
Services and commissioners will be able to use the NOA data to deliver equitable access to effective prevention and care programmes.
Legal basis
The Department of Health and Social Care has instructed NHS England to establish and operate a system for the collection and analysis of the NOA. This type of instruction is commonly known as a Direction (under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012).
The information is required by NHS England under section 259 of the 2012 Act to comply with the National Obesity Audit Directions 2023. In line with section 259, all organisations in England that are in scope of the NOA Data Provision Notice, must comply with the requirement and provide information to NHS England in the form, manner and period specified, therefore patient consent is not required.
A Direction must specify the information to be collected and include relevant details such as why the information is needed and what analysis is to be carried out. This information is included in the National Obesity Audit Requirement Specification and NOA dataset specification documents [EXTERNAL EXCEL DOCUMENT].
NOA and the National Data Opt-out
Where a collection is directed under the mechanism described above, the national data opt-out (NDOO) does not apply. Therefore, all patients’ records must be submitted to NHS England.
This is detailed in section 6.4 ‘When does a national data opt-out not apply?’ of the NDOO operational policy guidance document.
We are obliged to apply the national data opt-out if we supply the data onwards to any other organisation. For example, if a research body applies for NOA data via the Data Access Request Service (DARS) run by NHS England, then we are required to apply the NDOO to the data before supplying the data extract to the research body. We do this by checking the patient cohort against the national register.
Transparency Notice
GP practice transparency notice - Obesity Audit
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/clinical-audits-and-registries/national-obesity-audit/transparency-notice
National Obesity Audit: NHS England Transparency Notice
Publications
The latest publication to be released for the National Obesity Audit is now available.
This is the 4th release of data to form part of the National Obesity Audit (NOA) which now presents data from 2 sources:
- Hospital Episode Statistics (for Tier 4 Bariatric Surgery)
- Community Services Dataset (for Tier 2 and Tier 3 Weight Management Services)
This publication series includes a developing set of nationally agreed measures which will eventually provide a comprehensive picture of activity, access to services and health outcomes of patients using weight management services across England. This allows providers to track, benchmark and improve the quality of these services.
We have also made some improvements to the dashboard following feedback received by users. Please keep providing your opinions and feedback using the feedback form.
All previous and future releases of the dashboard will add data from other sources and include additional functionality. All updates will be added to the publication page.
The audit will also be publishing a state of nation report, in 2024.