A striking postcode lottery is causing thousands to miss out on potentially life-saving weight-loss jabs, a Daily Mail analysis has revealed. Patients in some parts of England are nearly five times more likely to receive 'King-Kong' injection Mounjaro than those living elsewhere.Britons with the easiest access to the blockbuster medication are those in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, as well as Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire.Meanwhile, NHS patients in Dorset and Derbyshire are struggling to get prescriptions for the jabs. Mounjaro, rolled out in June last year, is the only weight loss jab to be prescribed by GPs. Rival injections Wegovy and Ozempic are offered by specialist weight-management clinics. Patients need a body mass index (BMI) of at least 35 and at least one weight-related health condition to get a prescription, according to health watchdog NICE. But meeting the national criteria does not guarantee treatment. NHS funding is allocated to local health bodies known as individual integrated care boards (ICBs), which prioritise eligible patients due to limited capacity.
This means two patients who meet the same national criteria can face very different access depending on where they live. In many areas, patients must have four weight-related conditions to qualify. And even then, availability of the drug varies across England, as our analysis shows.Studies show Mounjaro can help patients lose around a fifth of their body weight, slashing the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and even some cancers. Despite the potentially life-saving benefits, problems with access emerged almost immediately afterthe drug's rollout began.Only 18 of England's then 42 ICBs had started prescribing the treatment two months after the launch, official NHS figures showed.At the time, only nine ICBs said they had enough funding to treat 70 per cent of eligible patients expected to come forward. By January, access had improved significantly, with 34 of the 42 ICBs offering Mounjaro to eligible patients. But huge regional disparities remained.
