A woman who underwent costly weight loss surgery on the NHS now wants folds of unsightly skin removed free of charge too.

Two years ago Loretta Cox was morbidly obese. At 5ft 3ins tall and weighing more than 20 stone, the mother of two had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of almost 50, making her dangerously overweight and at a greater risk of getting cancer, diabetes and suffering heart attacks and strokes.

Grandmother of three Mrs Cox, of Yarnton, contacted her GP for help losing weight and after a series of diets and exercise referral programmes failed, she was put forward for weight-loss surgery.

The recovering alcoholic said she was unable to stick to a strict diet and so was told she would have to have a £14,000 gastric bypass, which works by removing a section of the stomach.

The procedure was paid for by NHS Oxfordshire, the county’s primary care trust.

She has since lost almost half of her body weight – dropping nine stone to reach 11 stone – but has been left with folds of sagging skin, which she claims are ruining her life.

The 52-year-old said: “I hate it.

“I have always been big but before I was a happy go lucky person. I could wear anything and would pick outrageous outfits and get away with it.

“Now, even though I have lost the weight, I wear loose fitting baggy clothes because I hate my body and the loose skin.

“I don’t want to get undressed or be naked and its runing my relationship with my husband.

“I wish I had never had the operation.”

Health watchdog Nice, which sets national guidelines for health trusts, believes people with a BMI of more than 40 should automatically be referred for weight-loss surgery.

A healthy person’s Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 19 and 25 per cent body fat. Overweight is 25 to 30 and more than 30 is obese.

It is estimated about half of Oxfordshire’s 635,500 population is overweight or obese – with five per cent morbidly obese, meaning they have a BMI above 40.

NHS Oxfordshire said it would only pay for surgery for people with a BMI of more than 50 and who also had a serious illness, such as diabetes.

The authority also classes skin removal as a cosmetic procedure and does not routinely pay for it.

The price for a course of skin-removal treatment can range from £1,500 to £6,000 depending on the amount of skin that needs to be removed.

A spokesman for the trust said: ”Removal of redundant skin following weight loss is explicitly identified as a treatment which is ‘not normally funded’ in our commissioning policy.

“Funding may be approved for an individual patient in cases where the clinical circumstances can be considered exceptional.”

Mrs Cox said she could not afford the procedure herself.

She said: “ If I had known I’d be left with this skin I never would have had the bypass.

“It’s ruining my life.”