Less than half of England has NHS access to jab months after roll-out, distressing patients and GPs

Less than half of England has access to tirzepatide (Mounjaro) through general practices, despite the NHS roll-out of the weight-loss jab having officially started over two months ago, The BMJ can disclose.

Just 18 of 42 commissioning bodies across the country confirmed that they had started prescribing tirzepatide in line with NHS England’s primary care roll-out plan.

The data, obtained through a freedom of information request, also show that, despite NHS England stating it expects 70% of eligible patients to come forward for treatment, only a fraction of integrated care boards (ICBs) have enough funding for that.

Experts warned that the lack of funding and poor communication to the public about the roll-out were resulting in “distress and uncertainty both in patients and primary care” and had left ICBs in a difficult financial situation.

Four ICBs reported that the NHS funding they had received covered just 25% or less of their eligible patients, with Coventry and Warwickshire faring the worst. That ICB told The BMJ it had received funding to cover just 376 patients, despite identifying 1795 eligible patients in the first year, meaning it can cover only 21% of its patients.

Because of the large number of people who could benefit from tirzepatide—an estimated 3.4 million—and the drug’s price, NHS England and its spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), agreed that the injections would be rolled out in phases over 12 years.

Jonathan Hazlehurst, consultant endocrinologist and academic clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham, said that although the central funding from NHS England was “extremely welcome” the roll-out had so far been “significantly underfunded.”

He said, “That clearly drives up distress and uncertainty both in patients and primary care and runs the risk of inequity in access to treatment, and that’s my biggest concern.”

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Source: The BMJ, 4 September 2025