A NEW £20m private hospital dedicated to performing surgery on the clinically obese is set to open in Worcestershire.

It is hoped that as many as 2,000 operations will be carried out in the first 12 months at Dolan Park Hospital, near Bromsgrove.

The hospital was originally to be built as a conventional private clinic, but was redesigned after gastric surgeon Phil Thomas persuaded its owners of the need for a specialist obesity unit.

Contracts

Dolan Park hopes to win NHS contracts as it is estimated that mainstream hospitals are only performing 10 per cent of the obesity surgery needed.

The clinic has been redesigned with four operating theatres and an intensive care unit.

Mr Thomas, a consultant surgeon, said: "For many reasons, some of which are to do with funding, only 200 obesity cases were undertaken in the whole of the UK last year.

"It should be nearer 4,000 at least - probably nearer 10,000.

"We need to take a radical approach to obesity otherwise we're going to be having millions of our citizens dying prematurely, having lived a life of chronic debilitation."

Balloon

Some of the surgical procedures on offer will include placing a band around the stomach to reduce its size - at a cost of about £7,000.

Or a balloon inserted inside the stomach, costing about £3,500.

David Allinson, a manager for The National Centre for Obesity Surgery, the company running the hospital, said the new facility could not come soon enough.

"Looking at the way that healthcare was going we simply recognised that there was a need to deliver a comprehensive package to people suffering from obesity in the UK," he added.

Dolan Park is scheduled to open in March.