Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of NHS patients who would be eligible to use Wegovy.

Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that Wegovy, otherwise known as semaglutide, is used as an option in the National Health Service for weight management in adults that have at least one weight-related comorbidity and a body mass index (BMI) of at least 35.0 kg/m2, or a BMI of 30.0 kg/m2 to 34.9 kg/m2 and meet the criteria for referral to specialist weight management services in NICE’s clinical guideline on obesity: identification, assessment and management, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg189.

Wegovy is recommended for use within a specialist weight management service providing multidisciplinary management of overweight or obesity (including but not limited to tiers three and four).

The Department estimates that more people will be eligible for this treatment than could be treated if access is only available through specialist weight management services, which are primarily hospital-based services. That is why we have announced up to £40 million funding over two years to explore ways to make obesity drugs safely available to more patients living with obesity outside of hospital settings.