Mounjaro focus: GP practices to receive £3,000 bonuses to maximise weight‑loss jab prescriptions
GP practices in England are set to be paid an average of £3, 000 a year in bonuses to prescribe weight‑loss injections, with the incentive payments targeting Mounjaro and added funding for referrals to weight‑loss programmes. The change will be added to the GP contract starting in April and represents the first time weight‑loss drugs have been included in contract incentives.
Why Mounjaro is the focus of the GP bonus
The incentive payments will apply only to Mounjaro. This drug began to be available on the NHS in 2025 but not all GPs are yet prescribing it as often as expected. The £3, 000 figure is presented as an average annual bonus, with the exact size of the payment dependent on the size of the practice and on reaching thresholds for prescribing the maximum number of eligible patients for Mounjaro.
How the GP bonus scheme will work
The government will add the incentive payments to the GP contract starting in April. Practices will also receive additional payments worth about £1, 000 a year for referring patients on to weight‑loss programmes. Practices will have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the bonus. This marks the first inclusion of weight‑loss drugs in the GP contract, building on a long history of incentive payments used to improve areas such as dementia care, vaccination rates and prescribing statins.
Eligibility, rollout and patient prioritisation
GP prescribing of Mounjaro began during this financial year and access has been tightly restricted. Current access rules limit prescriptions to those who are severely obese with a body mass index (BMI) over 40 plus certain health conditions. Next year access will be widened to those with a BMI over 35, and eligibility thresholds are lower for certain ethnic groups. There is an expectation that by 2028 some 220, 000 patients will be on Mounjaro provided by the NHS. Separately, 220, 000 patients have been prioritised for the first three years of rollout, though current data suggests that even those prioritised cannot always access the drugs and not all GP practices currently prescribe them.
Funding, scale and competing estimates of use
The new scheme is backed by a ring‑fenced funding pot of £25 million. Estimates of how many people are using weight‑loss injections vary in recent coverage: one estimate puts users at more than 1 million, with nine in 10 paying for the drugs privately; another places the figure at an estimated 2. 4 million Britons, with most accessing them privately. The NHS began a mass rollout of weight‑loss injections last summer, and NHS planning indicates the phased rollout of Mounjaro could take up to 12 years.
Specialist services, other drugs and the limits of the policy
The other new‑generation weight‑loss drug mentioned in coverage, Wegovy, is not prescribed by GPs but is instead given by specialist NHS weight‑loss services. Obesity experts have warned the incentive scheme will have limited impact because the drugs remain tightly restricted on the NHS and the new payments do not widen eligibility. Rollout so far has been described as patchy.
Officials' messages and expert caution
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said weight‑loss drugs can be a "real game changer" for those who need them and emphasised a commitment that access should be based on need, not ability to pay. He highlighted concerns about people buying privately and the emergence of rogue prescribers offering unlicensed drugs that put patients at risk, and argued that investing in general practice will help bring modern medicine to more patients and shift focus from treatment to prevention.
Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown cautioned that widening the rollout could increase workload in a way that may not be sustainable and risk raising unrealistic expectations among patients who may not be eligible.
Developing details remain around exact eligibility criteria for individual practices and how quickly prescribing levels will rise; rollout and access remain subject to change.
