It was announced this week that millions of overweight unemployed Britons could be offered fat-busting jabs on the NHS in a government campaign to get them back to work.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting plans to offer the unemployed drugs to combat the range of obesity-related illnesses that force many to take long-term sick leave.
The idea has the backing of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who has insisted it could help ease the taxpayer’s costs of treating excess flab and boosting the economy.
However, medicines including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are already available on the NHS for some patients.
As long as they meet a strict set of criteria, a select few can avoid paying expensive private prescriptions of £200 a month.
Millions of obese and unemployed Britons could be offered fat-reducing jabs in a government scheme to get them back to work.
Currently patients can only get the weight loss drug Wegovy on the National Health Service (NHS).
Like the more famous Ozempic, it contains the drug semaglutide and has been shown in studies to help patients lose about 15 percent of their body weight.
Ozempic is licensed for the treatment of diabetes and while it can be taken for weight loss off-label, it is not provided by the NHS as it must reserve supplies for patients who need it most.
Likewise, Mounjaro, which contains the active ingredient tirzepatide, is currently only available on the NHS for diabetics, although this is likely to change soon.
To get Wegovy on the NHS, people must meet one of two criteria.
The first is having a body mass index (BMI) greater than 35, which means a person is at the upper end of obesity and at risk for health problems.
Or they may have a BMI greater than 30, as well as a weight-related health problem, such as high blood pressure or heart disease.
These BMI thresholds change for people of certain ethnicities based on existing NHS rules for classifying obesity in these groups.
It was revealed today that Health Secretary Wes Streeting plans to offer unemployed Britons free injections of drugs such as Wegovy, a cousin of Ozempic, and Mounjaro.
People of Asian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Black African or African-Caribbean origin only need a BMI of 32.5 to be eligible for Wegovy based on obesity alone.
This reduces to a BMI of 27.5 or higher for these groups if they have pre-existing health problems related to obesity, as highlighted above.
In any case, it is not as simple as people who meet these criteria going to their GP and receiving Wegovy.
The NHS only distributes the drug through its specialist weight management service.
People can only access this service through a referral from their GP or other qualified health professional, and even then they may have to wait weeks or months for an appointment.
Having jumped through all these hoops, the drug is not technically free – patients will still have to pay the standard NHS prescription charge in England of £9.90.
But this is much cheaper than getting the medicine privately.
Sold under the brand names Wegovy and Mounjaro, as well as unauthorized prescriptions for the diabetes drug Ozempic, the controversial plan is for the injections to combat a range of obesity-related illnesses that are forcing Britons out of work.
Some people will have the £9.90 payment waived if they meet certain criteria, similar to most other medicines provided by the health service.
These include students under 18, over 60, refugees or asylum seekers and people receiving benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance and universal credit.
Some groups that don’t pay for prescriptions wouldn’t be offered Wegovy or other fat-busting vaccines, like pregnant women, for example.
In addition to offering Mounjaro for weight loss, there have been other plans to change the eligibility criteria.
Following studies showing a number of heart health benefits from taking drugs such as Wegovy, pharmaceutical bosses outlined plans to offer the drug to Britons with a BMI of just 27, meaning overweight, not obese, and ill. existing cardiovascular diseases.
This could open the door for millions more Britons to be offered the NHS jabs as a preventive medicine.
However, the plans have not yet been approved, and NHS spending watchdogs must assess whether using the drugs in this way is a cost-effective use of taxpayers’ funds, with a decision expected next summer. .
The NHS-backed OpenPrescribing data source shows soaring prescriptions for semaglutide, the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy.
Cardiovascular disease accounts for around a quarter of all deaths in the UK, which equates to 170,000 deaths a year or 480 every day.
All fat injections currently on the market work by mimicking a natural hormone called GLP-1 that makes people feel full, reduces appetite and helps with weight loss.
While they can help people lose up to a quarter of their body weight, the injections, like any drug, are not without potential side effects.
But the news comes despite dire warnings that around 3,000 Britons have fallen ill so far this year after taking Ozempic or Wegovy.
Earlier this year, MailOnline revealed that beatings had even been linked to 20 deaths in Britain.
While these cases are rare, other side effects such as nausea, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, stomach pain, headaches, and dizziness are more common.
Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy work by causing the body to bind to a receptor called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a protein that triggers the release of hormones in the brain that keep the stomach full and tell the body stop eating and avoid cravings
Some patients have also reported strange symptoms, such as hair loss.
Even without Labour’s plans to expand prescribing, the NHS has distributed 1.2 million doses of semaglutide in 2023, a massive increase on just 81,000 distributed in 2019.
It comes as the Government confirmed last night that pharmaceutical giant Lilly will invest £279m in developing new medicines and treatments in the UK.
The news comes in response to Britain’s ever-expanding obesity crisis.
Two in three Britons are classed as overweight or obese and NHS figures show people now weigh around a stone than they did more than 30 years ago.
Obesity is the second most common cause of preventable death after smoking in the UK and costs the health service £11.4 billion a year.
Streeting has also said that excess flab causes people to take four more days of sick leave on average, while some are even forced to stop working altogether.
Fat-burning jabs have become the slimming jab of choice for celebrities with famous faces who who have admitted to using them including oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Sharon Osborne, chelsea controller and Robbie Williams.
While it is a potential “game changer” in the battle against obesity, there has been growing concern about the number of normal weight and underweight patients requiring emergency care after receiving the jabs in an attempt to be “prepared.” for the beach body”.