Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week (July 3) hinted at plans to make “innovative” weight loss jab services available in pharmacies in the future as part of the government’s new 10-year health plan.
The plan stressed that there is a “risk” that weight loss injections such as Wegovy and Mounjaro “become the preserve of those who can afford them despite those without the financial means having higher need”.
Read more: IN FULL: Pharmacy to ‘transition’ from dispensing to clinical services by 2030
“[So] it is important to expand access to weight loss services and treatments free at the point of need,” it said.
“To that end, we are establishing pioneering relationships with industry to test innovative models of delivering weight loss services and treatments to patients effectively and safely,” the plan set out.
“Digital only” weight loss service
According to the document, these “innovative models” may include:
- “Digital only” models where “everything” is managed online
- Delivery in local communities in “convenient” places for citizens, such as “on the high street or at any out-of-town shopping centre”
- Models that can work in “rural and other less urban geographies”
And speaking at a hospital in east London for the launch of the plan, Starmer said that “innovative weight loss services...can be available in pharmacies”.
Read more: DH to launch pharmacist-staffed ‘neighbourhood health services’
The plan also said that the government “will build on the success of the NHS digital weight management programme [by] expanding it to 125,000 more people per year...doubling the number of people who can access it”.
It will “develop new commercial arrangements to speed up access to game-changing medicines” such as a deal it made with Eli Lilly to widen access to its weight loss jab Mounjaro last year, it added.
And it will partner with “industry” to provide “access to new treatments on a pay for impact on health outcomes basis”, the plan said.
Read more: Blair report urges online pharmacy weight loss jab expansion
This means companies will not just be paid “if people lose weight but if that also translates into [other] outcomes...such as fewer heart attacks, strokes or cancer diagnoses”, it added.
It comes after a Tony Blaire Institute report called for “faster, broader access” to weight loss medicines via a “means-tested” rollout through private providers already offering the drugs in May.
Among other things, it recommended that this wider rollout take place “predominantly through digital channels”, in particular online pharmacies, saying that rollout at scale through general practice is “probably both infeasible and unreasonable”.
Read more: Exclusive: CPhO confirms Mounjaro pharmacy service on the cards
Meanwhile, England chief pharmaceutical officer (CPhO) David Webb told C+D at the NHS Confed Expo last month that “flexible” weight loss jab service delivery models may see pharmacy at the front of rollout.
And the 10-year plan echoes reports from national newspapers in May that health officials were set to announce plans to make weight loss jabs available “on prescription” at pharmacies thanks to a multimillion-pound deal “with a major pharmaceutical firm”.
Check the C+D site for the latest on this developing story
