Push in Britain to hand out weight-loss jabs like statins

Professor Sir Stephen Powis says National Health Service officials in Britain are examining ways to broaden access to weight-loss medication. Photo / Getty Images

Weight-loss jabs could eventually be doled out like statins, England’s top doctor has said.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, medical director of the National Health Service, said it should consider the mass rollout of medication to “turn the tide” on Britain’s obesity crisis.

The NHS has been criticised for tightly rationing the jabs, having drawn up a plan for a 12-year rollout.

GPs in England will start prescribing the injections from this month, but only to those with severe obesity and at least one weight-related health problem. Until now, jabs have only been available via specialist services with long waiting lists.

However, NHS pilot schemes will look at ways to roll them out far more widely, including offering jabs through the post, from online pharmacies.

Statins are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United Kingdom, with about eight million people taking them to cut their chance of a heart attack and stroke.

An estimated 1.5 million people are taking weight-loss jabs in the UK, with the vast majority paying for them privately, at about £200 ($451.51) a month.

‘Exciting milestone’

Speaking at the NHS ConfedExpo conference in Manchester, Powis hailed the rollout in GP surgeries as an “exciting milestone” and said NHS officials are also examining ways to “broaden access to the drugs”.

Around 29% of adults in the UK are obese.

Powis said: “Right now, obesity is estimated to cost the NHS approximately £11.4 billion ($25.7b) every year – this financial burden is unsustainable for the NHS and wider economy.

“We have to turn the tide. We have to and will go further, and faster.

“In just a few years from now, some of today’s weight-loss drugs will be available at much lower cost. This could completely transform access to these innovative treatments.

“But we will and must be guided by the evidence base and must do this safely and sustainably, in a way that ensures that we are equipped as a health service to deal with the demand.”

‘We’ll learn how to deploy them better’

Powis said that the “exciting new class of medication” would see wider rollout in the same way that statins had been rolled out en masse.

“There will be more drugs coming on the market. There will be different prices for drugs. We will get to generics, which means that prices will fall,” he said.

“We have been through this over statins, and the use of statins is now very different from when they first came out, and I’ve no doubt that will be the same for these drugs. So it’s very exciting.”

The senior doctor said research suggesting they can prevent and treat multiple diseases, including heart and kidney disease, also meant they were like statins.

“It’s highly likely that they will become more widespread, the evidence base will increase. We will learn better how to deploy them,” he said.

England intended to go further, and was exploring the use of online consultations via pharmacies, which could deliver the drugs.

The Blair Institute recently urged the NHS to roll out such a model, saying around half the population should be made eligible.

The senior doctor said: “We want to broaden the ways in which you can access these drugs. So we’re very interested in thinking about pharmacies, thinking about digital. We will deliver the structured support through a combination of digital and face-to-face.”

Drugs no ‘silver bullet’

However, Powis said he was not “starry-eyed” about weight-loss drugs, adding they are “no silver bullet”.

He said: “These medicines can be harmful if they are prescribed without the right checks and wraparound care – they can have side effects, including nausea, dehydration and inflammation of the pancreas, and a worrying number of people are continuing to access them without appropriate checks via the internet”.

During a conference session, he discussed the issue with Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, who said the jabs must not be used as an “excuse” not to tackle the causes of Britain’s obesity crisis.

Whitty said: “They are not the get out of jail card that says we don’t have to do the other social things [to prevent obesity]”.

“It is simply unacceptable, for example, to be advertising obviously obesogenic foods to young children on the basis that subsequently they might be able to have drugs and then undo the damage, which will otherwise be lifelong.

“So I think what we shouldn’t do is use them as an excuse, as a society, not to deal with what is a rising and very serious problem.”

Later this month, GPs in England will be allowed to prescribe Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide, for the first time.

The drug has been dubbed the “King Kong” of jabs because it has proved more effective than Wegovy, which is marketed as Ozempic for diabetes, in promoting weight loss. Until now, the NHS has only made jabs available at specialist clinics.

About 220,000 people – those with a BMI over 40 and at least one obesity-related health problem – will be prioritised for NHS jabs in the next three years. But pilot schemes are looking at ways to speed up and broaden rollout.