GP practices to receive incentives to prescribe NHS weight-loss injections

GP practices in England will receive new financial incentives from April to support the prescribing of NHS-approved weight-loss injections, under changes to the national GP contract.

Practices will be eligible for an average bonus of around £3,000 per year for prescribing the maximum number of eligible patients the injectable weight-loss medicine Mounjaro. A further £1,000 per year will be available for referring patients to structured NHS weight-management services.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the move aims to ensure that patients who meet clinical criteria for weight-loss treatment can access appropriate support through primary care, rather than relying on private prescriptions.

Despite the new incentives, obesity specialists have cautioned that the impact on access will be limited, as NHS eligibility criteria for injectable weight-loss treatments remain tightly defined.

Wegovy, the other new-generation injectable weight-loss treatment available on the NHS, is currently prescribed through specialist weight-management services rather than GP practices. The new incentive payments apply only to Mounjaro.

Although more than one million people in the UK are estimated to be using injectable weight-loss medicines, the majority continue to access treatment privately.

Mounjaro began limited rollout in NHS primary care during 2025. Current eligibility is restricted to people with severe obesity (BMI ≥40) and specified obesity-related health conditions, with lower BMI thresholds applied for certain ethnic groups.

From 2026, eligibility is due to widen to people with a BMI of 35 and above with associated health conditions. National modelling suggests that by 2028, around 220,000 people could be receiving Mounjaro through the NHS. However, uptake in general practice to date has been reported to be variable, with capacity and pathway differences between regions.

The British Medical Association said the proposals do not change NHS England eligibility criteria and will not address short-term inequalities between patients who can afford private treatment and those who cannot.

The Royal College of General Practitioners also cautioned that widening use of injectable therapies in primary care could increase workload pressures and raise patient expectations in circumstances where medicines may not be clinically appropriate or available.

Incentive payments are a long-standing feature of GP contracts and have previously been used to support improvements in areas such as vaccination uptake, cardiovascular risk reduction and dementia care. This is the first time prescribing of weight-loss medicines has been included as a specific contractual incentive.