The number of patients opting to undergo surgery to achieve weight loss has soared, as growing public awareness about obesity leads to an increase in stomach stapling and gastric bypasses.

Spire Healthcare, Britain's second-biggest private hospital group, said yesterday that it had conducted 72 per cent more weight-loss operations in the six months to March than a year earlier. Nuffield Health, the third-largest private chain, said that it had nearly doubled the number of such operations last year to 900, from 500 in 2007.

BMI Healthcare, the largest private hospital chain and the second-biggest provider of weight-loss surgery after the National Health Service, with a 16 per cent market share, said that it had performed about 800 weight-loss procedures in the five months to March.

Obesity can pose significant health risks by potentially increasing the likelihood of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, according to Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre. It has become an increasingly hot topic after a series of studies showing obesity growing rapidly in Britain.

Adrian Fawcett, chief executive of General Healthcare Group, which owns the BMI hospital chain, said: “More and more people are deeming weight-loss surgery as appropriate, both to improve their appearance and to reduce the chance of illness.” Because such operations had been available for only about a decade, there was also more potential for rapid growth, Mr Fawcett said.

The surge in patient numbers for Britain's three biggest private healthcare providers came after the NHS reported in February that it had performed 2,724 weight-loss operations in 2008, a 36 per cent increase on 2007. Hospital admissions for obesity-related problems were up by 30 per cent to 5,018 over the same period.

That data came out a day after research showed that rising obesity in Britain was fuelling an increase in cases of type 2 diabetes.

Mr Fawcett estimated that the number of weight-loss operations in the UK hit about 8,000, or about £30 million, in 2008, triple the volume of five years ago. The NHS is by far the biggest provider of these operations, with roughly a third of the market, followed by BMI. The NHS tends to operate on those patients it believes are most in need of weight loss, with the private sector picking up the rest. Private operations are not covered by health insurance.

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