Weight loss jabs halve sick days - and could free up GPs and hospitals

Weight loss jabs have been found to halve work sick days in a major new piece of research. A study of UK patients presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Istanbul showed sickness absence fell by 45% among those taking the weekly injections for nine months. Extended leave dropped by more than half. The findings also suggest wider rollout could free up nearly 10 million GP appointments and cut A&E visits by obese patients by a quarter. Commenting on the research, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary until resigning on Thursday, said: “We’re on a mission to get the nation healthy again and Britons out of their sickbeds and back in the office. He said: “We need to get our country back to health and back to work. Our actions to build a healthy society are crucial to building a healthy economy. Weight loss jabs have helped us cut the number of sick notes signing people off work for the first time in years, so we’re rolling them out even further across the NHS .” An estimated 2.5 million Brits are on weight loss injections which suppress the appetite and make them feel full, quicker. However the vast majority of these are currently accessed via expensive private prescriptions. The NHS is currently rationing them for the most seriously obese but access will be widened in the coming years as it builds up capacity to offer support services to help users make the necessary drastic diet and lifestyle changes. Without this, if people stop the jabs they tend to pile the fat back on. The findings were compiled by weight management company Oviva based on a study of 1,270 NHS patients prescribed the injections because their weight was fuelling diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure . The majority of severely obese patients were prescribed semaglutide, which is marketed as Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic for treatment of type two diabetes. Patients who started with an average BMI of 45, lost 12% of their body weight on average. Sick days among those on the jabs fell by 45% and there was a 56% fall in absences of five days or more. These patients spent far less time at the GP, with in-person appointments falling by 4% from an average of 1.67 per patient to 0.95. Sick days dropped from 1.19 per patient to 0.66. The proportion taking at least five days of sick leave fell from 17% to 7%. Around three in ten adults in England are obese and a further 36% are overweight. Experts said if the programme were rolled out to the 3.4 million people in England currently technically eligible for weight-loss jabs on the NHS, it could free up nearly 10 million GP appointments every year, saving the health service around £364 million annually - equivalent to almost 3% of the GP core budget. A separate study of 738 patients prescribed the jabs found the number of A&E visits among the group fell by one quarter. Martin Fidock, UK managing director of Oviva, said: “Britain is in the grip of a productivity crisis, and obesity is one of the biggest drivers. Our data shows that when people get the right treatment - jabs combined with proper clinical support - they don’t just lose weight. They get back to work, stop relying on their GP and start living again.” The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended in 2024 that jabs should be offered to around 3.4 million people with a BMI of at least 35 and a weight-related health condition. But it restricted the rollout to 220,000 patients over the first three years, accounting for around one in 10 of those eligible. Dr Charlotte Refsum, director of policy at the Tony Blair Institute, said: “Broader access to anti-obesity medications could deliver significant gains for the economy alongside major savings for the NHS. Tackling obesity is not just a health priority, it’s an economic one.”