NHS: Anti-obesity Medication

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the prescription of new anti-obesity medication by the NHS is cost effective.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

I recognise my noble friend’s interest in this issue. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—NICE—makes recommendations on whether new medicines, including obesity medicines, should be routinely funded by the NHS in England, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE process ensures that new medicines do not displace funding for other, more effective treatments and services. The NHS in England is required to fund NICE-recommended treatments, usually within three months of the final guidance.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench and wish him well—especially if he is going to give some good replies to my questions too. My concern is the potential cost of the new drugs to the NHS, which could be crippling. Secondly, my concern is about youngsters who have type 2 diabetes. I foresee the possibility that these drugs could be prescribed to children and teenagers. That is a great worry for all of us—to see people self-administering in that way.

There are alternatives and there are cheaper alternatives. It behoves us to explore all of those before we start embarking on massive expenditure programmes. Could I get an assurance from my Minister that we are doing everything that we can with the private sector—the producers of food and drink—to ensure that we reduce the amount of sugar, particularly, and that we seek reformulation of food and drink, which will be much cheaper than spending a lot of money on an alternative new drug?

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. Of course, I will always give him the answers that he seeks. He touches on a lot of issues there—his question alone is probably worth a QSD. However, touching on one or two, the whole reason for the existence of NICE is to examine value for money for the taxpayer and effectiveness. Drugs are not approved and licensed simply for the sake of it, and certainly are not doled out by the NHS for the same reason. There is a range of measures in place. The weight-management services, which are available across the country, extend from the most basic end, using an NHS app, through a range of services and across a range of agencies through to surgery and the use of drugs. When he touches on the use of drugs by children, I think what he is talking about is not so much the drugs that are prescribed but children getting access potentially to the online world and getting online drugs that are not prescribed—which is a whole different issue.