Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the total number of patients in England that NHS weight management services has capacity to provide semaglutide treatment for in the next 12 months.

Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that Wegovy (semaglutide) should only be used in the National Health Service within a specialist weight management service, including but not limited to tier 3 and 4 services. NHS specialist weight management services are generally hospital based. We do not have an estimate of the capacity of these services to provide semaglutide treatment for in the next 12 months.

On 7 June 2023, the Government announced pilots to explore ways to make obesity drugs safely available to more patients living with obesity outside of hospital settings. If successful, these pilots could increase the number of patients who can benefit from these treatments.