Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Obesity significantly increases the risk of developing (or worsening) more than 200 chronic diseases, and it is also a risk factor for severe COVID-19. With the rising prevalence of obesity in the UK, there is a need to develop obesity care competencies that apply to healthcare professionals (HCPs) at all levels of the health service, to increase the capacity for contemporary, evidence-based treatment that is effective, compassionate, and avoids stigmatising patients.
METHODS: A UK Obesity Care Competencies Working Group consisting of experts by profession and experts by experience was created to provide a framework of obesity care competencies for HCPs involved in specialist obesity care (tiers 2-4 in the UK). The framework was adapted from a set of competencies recently published by the USA-based Obesity Medicine Education Collaborative (OMEC) and was intended to be adaptable to nurses and allied health professionals, as well as physicians, owing to the multidisciplinary team approach used in healthcare in the UK.
RESULTS: The UK Obesity Care Competencies Working Group developed a set of 29 competencies, divided into five focal areas, namely obesity knowledge, patient care and procedural skills, practice-based learning and improvement, professionalism and interpersonal communication skills, and systems-based practice. The working group recommends that the obesity care competencies are targeted at HCPs training as specialists. The competencies could be imported into existing training programmes to help standardise obesity-related medical education and could also be used to direct a new General Practitioner with Extended Role (GPwER) qualification.
CONCLUSION: This list of obesity care competencies aims to provide an initial framework to improve education for HCPs and therefore to improve patient care in obesity. The acceptance and integration of these competencies into the healthcare system should provide a stepping stone toward addressing trends in health inequality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3019-3030 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Advances in therapy |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 22 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This report was funded by a grant provided by Novo Nordisk UK (Crawley, Gatwick, UK), to the College of Contemporary Health. Novo Nordisk is also funding the journal’s Rapid Service and Open Access fees. Novo Nordisk has had no influence on the content of this report and that the authors take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole. Medical writing and editorial support for the development of this manuscript, under the direction of the authors, was provided by Nicola Humphry on behalf of Ashfield MedComms and Malgorzata Urbacz of Ashfield MedComms, an Ashfield Health company, and funded by Novo Nordisk UK (Crawley, Gatwick, UK). Novo Nordisk reviewed the manuscript for medical accuracy only. All authors contributed to the conceptualization and design of the methodology. Matthew S. Capehorn, Nigel Hinchliffe and John Feenie wrote the original draft. All authors contributed to the writing, review and editing of the manuscript. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and approved the final manuscript. All named authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) criteria for authorship for this article, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, and have given their approval for this version to be published. We would like to thank the non-author members of the UK Obesity Care Competencies Working Group for their assistance with the development of the obesity care competencies presented in this article: Mike Bewick (Healthcare Consultant at iQ4U Consultants Ltd; previous Deputy Director of NHS England); Nadya Isack, Obesity Empowerment Network UK Champion); and Ken Clare (Director of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Services, Obesity UK and Chair of the European Coalition for People Living with Obesity at the European Association for the Study of Obesity [EASO-ECPO]). We would also like to thank Scott Butsch and Robert Kushner, authors of the US obesity competencies paper, for their contribution to discussions. Matthew S Capehorn has received honoraria from advisory board meetings for Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) Eli Lilly Diabetes Alliance (BI/Lilly), Janssen, MSK, Novo Nordisk; payments for speaker meetings from Abbot, BI/Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi Aventis; travel and/or accommodation expenses to attend educational meetings from BI/Lilly, LighterLife, Novo Nordisk; and is a partner and Clinical Manager of the Rotherham Institute for Obesity (RIO), Director of RIO Weight Management Ltd., Medical Director at LighterLife (paid), and an Expert Advisor to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (unpaid); RIO has received research funding in the past or currently from Abbot, Bayer, BI/Lilly, Cambridge Weight Plan, GSK, Janssen, Leo Pharma, LighterLife, Merck, Novartis, and Novo Nordisk. John Feenie and Nigel Hinchliffe are employees of the College of Contemporary Health, which has received grant funding from Novo Nordisk. Simon Williams has received travel and/or accommodation expenses to attend educational meetings from Novo Nordisk. Mary O’Kane has received payment from Novo Nordisk for consultancy and services provided. She has also received payment from Johnson and Johnson for providing education. Andrew Hill has received payment for advice for Slimming World. Abd A Tahrani reports grants from Novo Nordisk, personal fees from Novo Nordisk, non-financial support from Novo Nordisk, personal fees from Eli Lilly, non-financial support from Eli Lilly, personal fees from Janssen, personal fees from AstraZeneca (AZ), non-financial support from AZ, non-financial support from Impeto medical, non-financial support from Resmed, non-financial support from Aptiva, personal fees from BI, non-financial support from BI, personal fees from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), nonfinancial support from BMS, personal fees from NAPP Pharmaceuticals, non-financial support from NAPP Pharmaceuticals, personal fees from MSD, non-financial support from MSD, personal fees from Nestle, personal fees from Gilead, grants from Sanofi, and personal fees from Sanofi outside the submitted work. Abd A Tahrani is currently an employee of Novo Nordisk. This work was performed before he became a Novo Nordisk employee. Ann Vincent has received personal fees from ProGroup, and travel and accommodation expenses from the Obesity Empowerment Network, for providing Patient and Public Involvement education. Deborah Cook has received funding from Johnson and Johnson, MSD, AZ, Novo Nordisk, and BI/Lilly for providing nursing education. This article is based on previous publications and does not contain any new studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Clinical Competence
- Delivery of Health Care
- Health Status Disparities
- Humans
- Obesity/therapy
- United Kingdom
