By Rebecca Thomas
Copyright independent
Weight-loss jabs should not only be for the rich, the health secretary has said, as he suggested millions more should be given access to the drugs on the NHS.
Addressing the Labour Party conference, Wes Streeting said money should not be a barrier to the potentially life-changing drugs, which are now used by around 1.5 million people in the UK.
Speaking of the drugs, he said:“The wealthy talk about how they’ve transformed their health, their confidence, their quality of life. But what about the millions who can’t afford them?
“That is a return to the days when health was determined by wealth. When some had access to the best care money can buy, while others waited and suffered. And I say: never again.”
The comments came as he hit out at Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for previously suggesting that the UK should move to an insurance-based health system.
The popularity of weight-loss jabs has soared in the past year as they are used in efforts to tackle obesity, with around 4 per cent of households currently using them in the UK.
Since June this year, weight-loss jab Mounjaro has been available on the NHS through GP practices as part of plans to roll out the jab to 220,000 patients over the next three years.
Some of the jabs cannot be prescribed for weight loss on the NHS, while others can be – and while at least 3.4 million patients could be eligible for them on the NHS, the criteria are strict.
Estimates suggest that about 90 per cent of people on the medication pay for them privately online and via high street pharmacies, with many Britons forking out hundreds of pounds for the drugs. At Boots online pharmacy, for example, the current monthly cost for Wegovy’s lowest dosage of 0.25mg a week is £125.10, rising to £206.00 for the highest dosage of 2.4mg.
Mr Streeting’s suggestion that weight-loss jabs should be more widely available on the NHS comes after Mounjaro’s owner, Eli Lilly, has hiked the private prices of the jabs in the UK after pressure from Donald Trump.
The government and Mr Streeting are currently in negotiations with the pharmaceutical sector after the US president called out the UK for getting drugs more cheaply.
Speaking at the Labour conference on Sunday, Mr Streeting suggested the UK’s success in negotiating drug prices had made it a target for President Trump.
He said because the UK was a “hard-headed negotiatior” that “we’ve landed on the radar of a certain occupant of the White House because it has noticed that the drugs in the UK is considerably cheaper in the UK than the US and maybe, not unreasonably, it’s putting quite a lot of pressure in the life sciences in the US to bring drug prices down”.
“It’s a legitimate theme for President Trump to try and get cheaper drugs for his citizens, but it’s put pressure on the industry and by extension us … I feel quite confident we’ll come through it and we’ll come through it stronger,” he added.
