London, UK - The research and innovation foundation Nesta has responded to the Health and Social Care Committee’s report on Food and Weight Management, which recommends that the government and NHS accelerate access to GLP-1 weight-loss medicines and guarantee long-term wraparound care for all obesity treatments.

NHS England plans to prioritise around 220,000 people in the first three years of a rollout that could take up to 12 years, a fraction of the 3.4 million people who meet NICE eligibility criteria.

Charley Lintern, director of healthy life at Nesta, said: “The Committee is right to highlight that obesity treatment is fragmented and difficult to access for those who need it most. Weight-loss medicines are a real breakthrough, but access must be expanded to those with the greatest need, rather than ability to pay. More solutions are needed to help people sustain weight-loss after coming off medication, and our whole system of delivering care must be streamlined and modernised to meet the scale of the challenge.

“None of this replaces prevention. We also need to change the ways that food is sold and marketed that are driving obesity in the first place. The government must press on with putting the healthy food standard in place, including setting targets for large food businesses to sell healthier food, to truly move the dial."