SPENDING on NHS weight-loss surgery in the North-East has soared over the past three years – providing more evidence of the region’s growing obesity problem.

Figures supplied by the City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust – the region’s main bariatric surgery centre which treats patients across the North-East – show the total cost of such procedures has risen nearly threefold.

In 2008-9, £1.7m was spent on such surgery, but that more than doubled to £3.6m in 2009-10.

In the past financial year, 2010-11, £4.6m was spent on weight-loss procedures.

The increase mirrored the number of referrals by GPs, although not all patients went on to have surgery.

In 2008-9, 747 patients were referred after being diagnosed clinically obese. That rose to 1,066 in 2009-10 and 1,150 in 2010-11.

The trust said a total of 547 operations were completed last year – more than half (299) were gastric bypass procedures, generally carried out on very overweight people – a 183 per cent increase on the 2008 figure of 193.

Surgeon Peter Small, who set up the region’s first bariatric surgery team 12 years ago, said demand for weight-loss surgery was placing the service under “massive strain”.

In October, three of the region’s hospital trusts – County Durham and Darlington, North Tees and Hartlepool, and South Tees, which also operates Northallerton’s Friarage Hospital – set up a service for obese patients funded by Norscore, formed by a partnership of the North- East’s primary care trusts.

So far, eight patients have been referred for counselling and weight-loss support sessions.

One patient, referred from the South Tees trust, has had bariatric surgery, with others expected to follow.

Mr Small said morbid obesity – where weight is an imminent health threat – was an epidemic in the UK and the North-East was “one of the worst-affected areas”.

He said 25 per cent of the North-East population had a body mass index over 30, meaning they are classed as obese.

However, surgery resulted in an improvement in obesity-related conditions and he said that two-thirds of diabetics and one-third of patients with high blood pressure were off medicines within 18 months.

“Benefits are being accrued quickly, and the cost of surgery is recovered in most cases,” he added.

A spokesman for the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said a specialist consultant has been recruited to work alongside an existing surgeon at Darlington Memorial Hospital on bariatric procedures.

The South Tees NHS Foundation Trust said it is investing £475,000 in the service in 2011-12.