NICE, gastric bands and yet more conflicts of interest

Thursday’s headlines last week were “Two million eligible for gastric bands... and if they all had the operation, the bill would be £12billion!” . The Mirror upgraded people from not just eligible but – you’re going to get one: “TWO MILLION obese Brits to get free gastric band operations on the NHS”.

This would suggest that the Mirror hadn’t modelled the logistics of this change in guidelines, but then nor has NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). When the guidelines were first proposed in July 2014, I was invited by the Independent on Sunday to do the opinion piece below...