What is Slimming World on Referral?
Slimming World on Referral is a partnership scheme between health professionals and Slimming World, providing overweight patients with effective, long-lasting, community-based weight loss support.
Health Practitioners taking part in the scheme can refer patients to Slimming World groups, offering them free membership for 12 weeks. The cost is paid for by the NHS and subsidised by Slimming World.
The first weight management company to actively support the building of partnerships with the NHS, Slimming World pioneered its ‘Slimming on Referral’ scheme with Southern Derbyshire Health Authority in 2000. This partnership scheme was set up to provide patients with regular weight loss support alongside appointments with primary care. Our pilot with Derbyshire (Lavin et al, 2006, Public Health) proved that a commercial weight management company could offer an effective solution to reduce overweight and obesity levels in the community. The pilot scheme provided recognition of service quality, patient satisfaction and value for money. It has proven to be an effective, low cost solution to the NHS with over 100 schemes having been established and more than 100,000 patient referrals having taken place in the past ten years.
Data from our recently published study on 34,271 patients referred by the NHS to Slimming World for 12 weeks (Stubbs et al, 2011, Obesity Facts):
- 25.4% were considered morbidly obese (BMI>40)
- Average attendance was 8.9 weeks (of 12)
- 58.1% completed the programme (10 of 12 weeks)
- Average weight loss of completers was 5.5% (4.0% across total population)
- 55% of completers lost = 5% bodyweight (36% of total population)
- Non-completers attended an average of 5.3 weeks and lost 1.8% of bodyweight
