The Department of Health asked the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to produce guidance on Obesity – working with local communities. See the scope for more information.

Registered stakeholders for this guidance are invited to comment on the provisional recommendations via this website.

Individuals and organisations not registered as stakeholders are not able to comment.  For further information about how your organisation can become a stakeholder, please see the stakeholder registration page.  We recommend that you register as a stakeholder or you contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to them.

Note that the provisional recommendations presented here do not constitute NICE’s formal guidance on this topic. The recommendations are provisional and may change after consultation.

Consultation dates: 8 May to midday on 8 June 2012

Please provide all responses to this draft guidance using the stakeholder comments Form (ensuring all relevant fields are completed, including your organisation's name) and forwarding this by 12pm on Friday 8 June 2012 to PreventingObesityCA@nice.org.uk.

Please note that this consultation will occur for 4 weeks as NICE have already consulted on the evidence.  The previous consultation closed on 22 July 2011 and involved many key practitioners in commissioned research for this work.  It also included the following reviews:

• Review 1: Identifying the key elements and interactions of a whole system approach to obesity prevention
• Review 2: The effectiveness of whole system approaches to prevent obesity
• Review 3: Barriers and facilitators to effective whole system approaches
• Review 4: Review of cost effectiveness evidence
• Expert testimony

Since this consultation NICE have included further expert testimony and economic modelling.  This new work is the result of a revised scope following the change in government.

Consultation documents

• Draft guidance
• Stakeholder comments form

The draft guidance describes the evidence and views that have been considered, and sets out the provisional recommendations that have been developed.

Supporting evidence

The following evidence was used by the Programme Development Group (PDG) in developing the provisional recommendations. Please see appendix C (‘The Evidence’) of the draft guidance for further details.

Evidence reviews

• Review 1 Identifying the key elements and interactions of a whole system approach to obesity prevention
• Review 2 The effectiveness of whole system approaches to prevent obesity
• Review 3 Barriers and facilitators to effective whole system approaches

Review of economic evaluations

• Whole system approaches to obesity prevention: Review of cost-effectiveness evidence

Economic modelling

• Cost effectiveness analysis in partnership working for reducing obesity and other long-term conditions

Commissioned report

• Implementing community-wide action to prevent obesity: opinions and experiences of local public health teams and other relevant parties

Expert papers

• Expert papers 1 - 19

Reviews 1, 2 and 3  and the cost effectiveness review were carried out by the Peninusla Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG).

The Commissioned report was carried out by Word of Mouth.

We are grateful to all the experts who very kindly gave up their time to prepare a paper and present to the PDG.

Points to consider in the consultation

• Points or areas that are not covered, but which appear to fall within the scope of the guidance.
• Potential inconsistencies or any disagreement with the Programme Development Group’s interpretation of the evidence and its applicability.
• The practical value of the provisional recommendations.
• Issues of presentation and style, including how the provisional recommendations have been grouped and ordered.
• Whether the right organisations and individuals have been identified under 'Who should take action' for each recommendation.
• Do you think this guidance could be improved to better promote equality of opportunity relating to age, disability, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation or socio-economic status? If so,  please include details of:
  
  - Which particular parts of the guidance you think affect equality of opportunity.
  
  - Why and how you think equality of opportunity is affected.

How to submit your comments

Please provide all responses to this draft guidance using the Stakeholder Comments Form (ensuring all relevant fields are completed, including your organisation's name) and forwarding this by 12pm on 8 June 2012 toPreventingObesityCA@nice.org.uk

NICE is unable to accept

• Comments from non-registered organisations – if you wish your comments to be considered please register via the NICE website
• Comments from individuals – please contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to them. Please see the stakeholder list for more information.
• Comments received after the consultation deadline (midday on 8 June)
• Comments that are not on the correct proforma
• More than one response per stakeholder organisation
• Confidential information or other material that you would not wish to be made public
• Personal information about yourself or another person from which your or the person’s identity could be ascertained.

What will happen to your comments

• All comments (with the exception of personal, individual comments and late comments) will be sent to the project team at the end of the consultation
• Comments from registered stakeholders will be formally responded to by the project team and posted on the NICE website after the final guidance is published.
• No action will be taken upon receipt of personal, individual comments and late comments.

Please note: NICE reserves the right to summarise and edit comments received during consultations, or not to publish them at all, where in the reasonable opinion of the Institute, the comments are voluminous, publication would be unlawful or publication would be otherwise inappropriate.