Commenting on reports that smokers and obese patients are being denied surgery, Chairman of the BMA's Consultants' Committee, Dr Jonathan Fielden, said:

"The BMA would not support blanket bans on treatments for certain groups of people, for example smokers and obese patients. That would be wholly unacceptable. The judgement should always be based on clinical need and every case should be considered on an individual basis. "However, clinical guidelines that are drawn up to ensure patients receive safe, high quality, appropriate treatment can mean that certain types of surgery can be deemed too high risk for some groups of patients. These guidelines should be flexible so that each patient's case can be looked at individually."

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