The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has received almost 750 concerns relating to the “prescribing and oversight” of weight loss medicines this year so far, C+D has learned.
The regulator this week told C+D that it began recording information on issues specific to weight management in January 2025.
Since then, 746 weight loss drug-related concerns have been raised with the GPhC, it said.
Read more: New weight loss regs: Almost 50 concerns already raised with GPhC
The regulator revealed in its latest annual report, published last week (October 2), that it had seen a “notable increase” in the number of concerns received from members of the public “about the prescribing and oversight of weight management medicines”.
It added that it has taken enforcement action against “at least 12 pharmacies” regarding “their supply of weight management medicines”.
Read more: GPhC whistleblower disclosures rocket up 208% in a year
And “at least nine other pharmacies” faced enforcement action for “inappropriately supplying medicines online without taking appropriate steps to verify information and relying too much on the information provided via a questionnaire”, it reported.
However, it remains unclear exactly what kind of enforcement action was taken against these pharmacies.
Weight loss worries
It comes after C+D revealed in March that the GPhC had received almost 50 concerns relating to weight management in the first month of its updated guidance on online pharmacies.
Three of those concerns had been “referred for an investigation into the fitness to practise of the pharmacy professional”, the regulator told C+D at the time.
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The GPhC had announced in new guidance published in February that online pharmacies “cannot” prescribe based on online questionnaires alone and must “independently verify” patients’ weight and height before prescribing weight loss drugs.
Information can be verified “either through timely two-way communication with the person, accessing the person’s clinical records, or contacting the person’s GP, their regular prescriber or a third-party provider”, it said.
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Meanwhile, whistleblowing disclosures made by pharmacy workers to the GPhC have risen by more than 200% since last year, a new report last month revealed.
The regulator’s annual whistleblowing disclosures report for 2025, published in conjunction with eight other health and social care professional regulators, said it had received “74 disclosures of information” between April 1 2024 and March 31 2025.
The figure represents a 208% increase compared to the previous year, when the GPhC reported a total of just 24 disclosures.
