Scottish doctors more than doubled free prescriptions of weight-loss jabs in 2024-25 as a “life-changing” treatment for conditions such as diabetes.

NHS doctors are not supposed to issue drugs such as Ozempic, which costs the health service £110 a time, just to help people lose weight. However, GPs and other specialists are increasingly seeing the relatively expensive injections as a way to save both their patients and their budgets.

A third of Scots are obese. Two years ago a charity calculated that obesity was costing the country more than £5 billion a year — 3 per cent of GDP — in early death and poor health.

Earlier this year the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change calculated that it would be cheaper for the health service to prescribe everybody who was overweight with a weight-loss jab than deal with the diseases and conditions caused by fat.

About one in twenty Scots are now believed to be taking Ozempic or another skinny jab, but almost all are paying for the privilege with a private prescription.

Official figures from Public Health Scotland show a rise in free NHS prescriptions for the drug semaglutide, which is known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy. It was dispensed 168,486 times in 2024-25, up 113 per cent from the year before, at a cost of nearly £19 million.

The Telegraph calculated this rise was the highest for any pharmaceutical in the Scottish health service. It does not include smaller levels of prescriptions of another popular weight-loss drug, tirzepatide, which is sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound.

The figures do not include prescriptions for Mounjaro

ALAMY

Michael Lean, a professor specialising in obesity at Glasgow University, said Scottish government guidance had changed last year to allow doctors to give the jabs for a wider range of weight-related illnesses, including heart disease, rather than only diabetes.

He said the Scottish authorities had shown “a greater understanding of the multiple serious health impacts of severe obesity” than those in England. Lean said he expected bills for the drugs — which cut out what scientists called “food noise” or yearnings to eat — to grow but argued there was “quite big potential for NHS cost savings”.

The Scottish government said: “We have a clear route for licensed medicines, including obesity medicines, to be appraised for their routine use in the NHS in Scotland through the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

“This is based on clinical and cost-effectiveness, ensuring value for both patients and the NHS.”

It added: “Prescribing data published by Public Health Scotland does not account for any confidential price reduction agreement for the NHS that may be in place.”

Glasgow University announced that it was carrying out a study, funded by the UK government, into the effects of free weight-loss jabs on the health of between 3,000 and 5,000 people from deprived neighbourhoods.

Zubir Ahmed, UK health innovation minister, said: “As a practising NHS surgeon and Glasgow MP, I know first-hand the impact of the obesity crisis that plagues Scotland, and the litany of health problems it leads to.

“More than one in three adults in Scotland’s most deprived areas are living with obesity. The UK government is committed to tackling inequality wherever it finds it in our country.

“It’s why this landmark UK government investment is targeting help where it’s needed most in Scotland and meeting people where they are and backing helping the NHS services they trust to treat them.”

Until now, weight-loss drugs have only been available as injections. Now Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy, has had a pill approved by the US regulator.