HEALTH services should ensure more people who are obese have their stomach stapled, at a cost of £6,000, to reduce their food intake, a North-East expert says.

The region has one of the highest rates of obesity in England, but few specialist surgeons who can carry out stomach stapling operations.

Independent health watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Effectiveness (Nice) calculates that in England, more than 600,000 dangerously overweight people would benefit from surgery to reduce their weight.

The operation reduces the amount of food a person can eat at one time, but fewer than 5,000 stomach stapling operations were carried out last year.

Dr Colin Waine, a lecturer on obesity at Sunderland University and chairman of the National Obesity Forum charity, said urgent action was needed.

The issue is particularly pressing for the North-East, which features prominently in obesity league tables published last year.

Five North-East districts were in the worst ten for obesity, with Easington, in County Durham, the worst in the country.

Experts have calculated that residents of the district have a 22 per cent higher risk of obesity than average.

However, there are only a handful of specialist NHS surgeons trained to carry out stomach stapling in the North-East, and the numbers being referred by GPs in the region remains small.

Dr Waine, who lives in Bishop Auckland, said: "We think surgery could be used more frequently than it is.

"This form of surgery is cost-effective because research has shown that the long-term results are very good.

"I think this problem has got to be addressed more seriously."

Nice backs the use of stomach stapling to reduce food intake if a patient is dangerously obese and if other efforts to manage weight through exercise, diet and medication have failed.

Dr Waine said surgery was a last resort, but was good value for the NHS.

He said: "We also need to alter the environment to make the UK more walker and cyclist friendly."

A Department of Health spokesman said that where the criteria for anti-obesity surgery were met, it was down to the local NHS to provide services.

Roselle Oberholzer, from the Public Health North-East group, said: "We are supporting work in a number of areas, including increasing physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption, promoting healthy eating in schools and work with young children and their parents.

"While there is a need to identify and support those people who are already overweight, we believe that if the trend in obesity is to be reversed, we must focus our attention on prevention and, in particular, the environment in which people live and the factors which influence their behaviour.