FOI 2026/1658

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am writing to request the following information regarding specialist weight management services within your area:

1. Please provide a copy of the current patient eligibility criteria for referral to your specialist weight management service.
2. If your specialist weight management service operates both a medicated pathway (including GLP-1 receptor agonist prescribing) and a non-medicated pathway, please provide the patient eligibility criteria for each pathway separately.
3. Please provide the name, job title, and contact email address of the individual responsible for managing Non-Contract Activity (NCA) queries relating to specialist weight management services. If this responsibility sits within a general NCA or contracting team, please provide the contact details for that team.
4. How many patients received specialist weight management services under the Right to Choose (patient choice) framework in the 2025/26 financial year, broken down by month?
5. Please provide a copy of any policy, procedure, or guidance document that sets out how Indicative Activity Plans (IAPs) and Activity Management Plans (AMPs) are established for specialist weight management services delivered under the patient choice framework. If no formal policy document exists, please provide a written explanation of how IAPs and AMPs are agreed with providers for these services, including any timelines or approval stages involved.

1. Eligibility criteria varies across Greater Manchester due to historic commissioning arrangements. This is currently under review however the table below is the current eligibility criteria for the non-medicated pathway.

2. Please refer to Q1 for the eligibility criteria for the non-medicated pathway. Please see attached commissioning statement for eligibility for the medicated pathway.

**A PDF document was sent to the requester with this response.  If you require a copy of the full response, together with the attachments, please contact NHS GM’s FOI team – nhsgm.foi@nhs.net **

3. Katherine Sheerin, Chief Healthcare Commissioning Officer has overall responsibility for commissioned health care for NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM).

Sara Roscoe, Associate Director for Strategic Commissioning is the responsible officer for managing non-contracted activity relating to specialist weight management services.

Contact email: gm.icp@nhs.net (please mark for the attention of the colleague you wish to contact in the subject field).

4. The table below shows the number of patients (broken down by month) who attended their initial consultation with a specialist weight management provider under right to choose. This covers the period April 2025 – February 2026, as we are still awaiting activity data for March 2026.

Please note – NHS GM does hold the information requested however, due to the low numbers involved (where patient data is 5 or less <5) we consider this to be exempt under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as the disclosure of this information may lead to the identification of individuals. This exemption is not subject to the public interest test.

5. Indicative Activity Plans have been agreed with RTC provider(s) delivering specialist weight services. These have been agreed based on the expected number of patients who meet the eligibility criteria.