Overview
- Analyses presented Thursday at the European Congress on Obesity found sickness absence fell 45% after several months on GLP-1 injections such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.
- Use of NHS care also dropped, with face-to-face GP appointments down about 43% in the 1,270-patient cohort and A&E visits down 25% in a separate group of 738 patients.
- Researchers estimated that scaling treatment to all 3.4 million people eligible under guidance could free nearly 10 million GP appointments a year and save about £364 million.
- The patients studied were severely obese NHS users starting with an average BMI of 45, lost about 12% of body weight over nine months, and were mostly prescribed semaglutide.
- NHS access remains constrained to roughly 220,000 patients under the staged rollout, and ministers have signaled further expansion as separate studies reported fewer asthma flare-ups and migraines among users.