Evidence generation plan

There is considerable variation in care delivery between specialist weight-management service providers. Specialist services included in the study should be considered for their multidisciplinary team composition and monitoring procedures and how well these are likely to reflect national variability of service delivery.

Duration of support and the criteria for access to the services also varies between different specialist weight-management services. This is an important consideration for selecting services to ensure that the technologies are suitable for different populations and to ensure sufficient follow up.

It is uncertain whether data collection in the Community Services Data Set (CSDS) fully represents all weight-management services. But this is expected to improve with more weight-management services registering and submitting data to the CSDS.

Implementation may have an increased burden on clinical staff, for example, the need to have training ahead of implementation, data collection and follow up.

The evidence generation process is most likely to succeed with dedicated research staff to reduce the burden on clinical staff, and by using a suitable real-world data source to collect information when possible.

Evidence generation should be overseen by a steering group including researchers, commissioners, practitioners and representatives with lived experience of obesity and weight-management services.

Careful planning of approaches to information governance is vital.

Companies may improve their chances of securing funding by also collecting data on outcomes relevant to other national organisations, for example, work and productivity outcomes.