LABOUR are urging the SNP to mimic their plans to tackle obesity with weight-loss jabs.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting at the weekend denied that his plan to overweight unemployed people should be given injections to help them lose weight and get to work was "dystopian".
Now Scottish Labour have picked up the suggestion, calling on the SNP Government in Edinburgh to ramp up the use of weight-loss drugs.
Scotland was the first country in the UK to approve Mounjaro and approved Wegovy last year – but critics claim their roll-out has been delayed by bureaucracy.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium, which approves drugs for NHS Scotland, has also given Ozempic the greenlight but no regional health boards have the drugs available for weight loss.
The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which manufactures Mounjaro, signed a £279 million partnership deal with the UK Government and will run a trial in Manchester to find out if using weight-loss drugs can boost economic activity and reduce the burden of obesity on the NHS.
Jackie Baillie (above), Scottish Labour’s health spokesperson, told The Times: “Weight-loss jabs, alongside changes to diet and exercise, have the potential to be a game-changer in the fight against diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
She said the Scottish Government “must ensure that patients who have been recommended these approved jabs by their clinician can access them – the results could be life-changing”.
According to the 2022 Scottish Health Survey, 67% of Scottish adults are either overweight or obese and it has been estimated this costs the Scottish economy £5.3 billion a year.
Public Health Minister Jenny Minto rejected Streeting’s plan to give weight-loss jabs to the unemployed to improve the economy.
She said: “Weight-loss medication in the NHS in Scotland is given on the basis of clinical need, not judged according to economic inactivity or unemployment.”
Minto added that the responsibility for choosing which medicines to offer lay with local health boards, which she said were “collectively considering the safe, effective and equitable implementation of these new treatment options within their services”.
Tory health spokesperson Sandesh Gulhane (above): “It is vital that weight-loss injections can be accessed by patients who might need them on medical grounds.
“The SNP and Labour governments must work together to ensure they provide our Scottish health boards with the resources they need to meet these requirements, so that Scottish patients do not miss out on treatment.”
