Weight loss drug availability 'a postcode lottery'

A man who has been taking the weight loss drug Mounjaro says he does not think new government incentives will help increase access to the treatment.

Brian Kinsella from Stone has been taking the drug privately since December 2024 and said he had lost more than 44.5kg (seven stone) at a cost of up to £1,000 annually over that period.

GPs in England are due to be paid £3,000 per year in bonuses to prescribe patients weight loss drugs.

Ministers said it was important that patients who could benefit from weight loss support were able to access it.

Mounjaro has been available to a limited number of NHS patients since June last year. but not all GP practices have been prescribing it, the government said.

GPs would also be encouraged to refer more patients to weight loss programmes under the latest proposals.

Kinsella said prior to taking Mounjaro he was pre-diabetic, had high cholesterol as well as elevated blood pressure and was taking medication for acid reflux and pain relief for knee and shoulder injuries.

All of those problems had since disappeared, he said.

He now pays about £500 per year for the maintenance dose he is currently on.

Kinsella said he did not think the new incentives would help because the scale of the problem was too big.

"It's basically a postcode lottery," he said.

"There really doesn't seem to be much good planning in place and quite frankly I don't see how the surgeries, consultations, can cope with the workload."

Doctors don't currently have the resources to meet the requirements, he said.

He said the rules meant they needed to offer two consultations lasting 85 minutes each, then every four weeks a 20-minute consultation as well as a dietician appointment lasting 60 minutes.

"The scale and the size of the problem is known," he said.

"I actually think we've got a solution, but we can't connect the two because the NHS system can't connect those two.

"Somehow we've got to find a mechanism that allows this drug, which has been so successful for so many people, to become more widely available."

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