GPs will be paid bonuses worth millions of pounds if they prescribe fat jabs to their most obese patients under a new NHS contract.
The deal will see a typical GP practice pocket an extra £3,000 a year for doling out Mounjaro to at least eight in ten eligible people on its list.
Officials hope the financial incentive will encourage family doctors to accelerate the rollout of the drug, which can help patients shed up to a fifth of their body weight in a little over a year.
Not all practices are currently prescribing the treatment despite being given the authority to do so eight months ago, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
An estimated 2.4 million people are taking weight-loss drugs in the UK but severe rationing by the NHS means the vast majority are forced to buy them privately at a cost of around £200 a month.
NHS England has implemented a phased 12-year rollout of the once-weekly injection, with only 220,000 patients prioritised in the first three years.
It is currently offered on the health service to severely obese people with a body mass index over 40 who also have complicating illnesses such as high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnoea, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'Weight-loss drugs can be a real game changer for those who need them.
The deal will see a typical GP practice pocket an extra £3,000 a year for doling out Mounjaro to at least eight in ten eligible people on its list
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'Weight-loss drugs can be a real game changer for those who need them.'
'I'm determined that access should be based on need, not ability to pay.
'Outside the NHS, we've seen those who can spare the cash buying privately, and the proliferation of rogue prescribers peddling dangerous unlicensed drugs that are putting patients at risk.
'This is just part of a wider public health package to help ease the £11 billion burden obesity places on the health service and economy.
'These new incentives for GPs will bring the principle of fairness – which has always underpinned the NHS – to obesity jabs, with the phased rollout to those with highest clinical need first.'
GPs will also be paid additional money for referring patients to weight management services, where they can be given advice on healthy eating and exercise.
The weight-related bonuses could be worth up to £25million in total.
NHS England previously said if all eligible patients – thought to be over three million – turned up for the drug in the first year, and 70 per cent of those were started on treatment, the impact on primary care and general practice would be profound and take-up almost one in five (18 per cent) GP appointments.
Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: 'At present, weight-loss medications on the NHS are targeted at those with the greatest clinical need, in line with national guidance and the capacity of local services.
'GPs are prescribing within these parameters.
'Decisions about eligibility, rollout and resourcing are not made by practices, but nationally, based on the evidence we have about safety, effectiveness and capacity.
'While long-overdue investment in general practice is welcome, GPs do not withhold treatment or prescribe based on financial incentives.
'Decisions are guided by clinical judgment and what is safest and most appropriate for individual patients.
'Widening the rollout of these medications in general practice could end up increasing workload in a way that may not be sustainable, and risk raising unrealistic expectations among patients who may not be eligible, or for whom these medicines are not suitable.'
Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association – which represents around 6,000 independent pharmacies in the UK, said: 'The NHS rollout of weight-loss treatments remains very slow and only a handful of patients are being treated.
'In some parts of the country, it has hardly begun at all.
'The Government should be using the expertise pharmacies have in this area to support the NHS reach more patients, rather than overstretched GPs.
'Community pharmacies can provide a patient with the care they need to achieve a sustainable weight loss, through wraparound support and careful lifestyle changes, where a patient is eligible for treatment.'
