The Rotherham Institute for Obesity (RIO) is a unique and specialist centre for the management of weight problems with a multidisciplinary approach to reducing and maintaining weight loss.  It was formally opened on the 6 November 2009, by Professor David Haslam, Chairman of the National Obesity Forum (NOF), during the 2009 National Obesity Week (NOW!) Campaign.   

RIO does not claim to have invented the cure for weight problems, and cannot guarantee weight loss for patients, but it brings together all the NHS approved and evidence-based methods for weight loss into one Primary Care based Centre in the hope that we can maximise the chances for weight loss. 

RIO facilities include: 

• Health Trainers to assess motivation, set appropriate goals, and address lifestyle changes    
• Obesity Specialist Nurses that provide basic weight management and nutrition advice    
• "Cook & Eat" sessions in our on-site kitchen (as Jamie Oliver taught us, with his Ministry of Food show, many Rotherham patients do not know how to cook, so what is the point of teaching nutrition if we do not teach the basics of how to cook and put this information into practice)    
• Dietitian input for complex dietary needs that are outside the expertise of obesity specialist nurses (vegan diets, IBS, type 1 diabetes, coeliac disease, malabsorption syndrome etc) and also pre- and post- op dietary advice for those patients going on to have bariatric surgery   
• GP with a specialist interest in order to assess medications, and consider changing any that may cause weight gain to more "weight-friendly" alternatives, or for the consideration of weight loss medications and referral to bariatric surgical procedures    
• Exercise therapy in our on-site gym, with an individualised personal training plan and the option of referral to free and subsidised local gym memberships    
• Talking therapies (eg, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Neurolinguistic Programming, Emotional Freedom Techniques and Hypnotherapy) which address why many of us eat, even though we know we are full, eg, comfort eating, habit eating etc, and teaches techniques for breaking those habits.   

By having this multidisciplinary team approach we can tailor a weight management programme that is most likely to work in a motivated individual. 

RIO is continually being developed in order to provide more services for patients.   

It has recently become the first centre in the UK, based in Primary Care, which is routinely screening and diagnosing Obstructive Sleep Apnoea in their high risk obese diabetic target population, and we are currently developing the facilities at RIO, in order to offer the endoscopic surgical procedures, such as the bariatric intra-gastric balloons and endo-barriers, in the primary care setting.