Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the value for money of obesity treatments and weight-loss medicines; and whether their impact on sickness absence, workforce participation and wider economic productivity has been taken into account.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. When assessing treatments, NICE looks at how well they work and whether they represent good value for NHS money. Its standard approach focuses on NHS costs and does not include wider economic factors such as the impact on sickness absence or workforce productivity.

NICE has recommended a number of medicines licensed for the treatment of obesity for use on the NHS using its standard approach to evaluations, and those treatments are now available for the treatment of NHS patients in line with NICE’s guidance.