Guidance issued for GPs managing weight loss injection patients
By: Communications
Experts at UEA and King’s College London have released guidance for GPs on how to manage patients who may be privately accessing weight loss drugs.
Published today in Obesity Facts, the ten evidence-based tips aim to help GPs who see patients using privately accessed drugs such as Mounjaro or Ozempic.
The team say they hope the tips will help GPs manage side effects such as dizziness and watch for red flags such as severe abdominal pain.
Study at Norwich Medical School
GPs have been able to prescribe Mounjaro since Monday, June 23, but before that, medications were not routinely prescribed for obesity management.
The roll-out is expected to reach approximately 220,000 people across England over the next three years.
But an estimated that 1.5 million people used weight-loss jabs in March 2025 with 80 per cent of these purchased through online retailers.
As these users were privately accessing the medication, providers do not always provide wrap-around care such as dietary advice or psychological support.
Key recommendations:
- Ask about use: Adopt a non-judgemental approach to uncover undisclosed weight loss injection use when patients present with dizziness, falls, gastrointestinal symptoms or rapid weight change.
- Review medicines early: Consider the need to downtitrate insulin, sulphonylureas and antihypertensives to avoid hypoglycaemia and postural hypotension as weight reduces.
- Watch for red flags: Severe abdominal pain may signal acute pancreatitis or biliary disease; urgent assessment is advised.
- Consider fertility and surgery: Advise women of child-bearing age to stop GLP-1 drugs two months before conception attempts, and stop weekly medications one week before surgery to lower the chance of liquid/food entering the lungs.
Joint first author Dr Helen Parretti, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “We hope that these ten top tips will help support GPs, and other healthcare professionals working in primary care, when managing patients on these medications. They offer practical, evidence-based guidance that has been designed to be easily accessible to busy healthcare professionals.”
Lead author Dr Laurence Dobbie, from King’s College London, said: “More than a million people are taking these medicines privately and seeing GPs with lots of different problems.
“We want GPs to have the basic knowledge to prioritise patient safety and demystify side effects. I’ve seen patients in primary care who are clearly taking the medications, but they haven’t been given wrap-around care.”
The guidance is the first output of Obesity Management Collaborative UK, a network set up in 2024 to support clinicians managing patients with obesity.
The network is chaired by Prof Barbara McGowan at King’s College London.
She said: “OMC-UK was developed to provide education, professional development and support to healthcare professionals working in weight management services. These ten top tips aim to up-skill GPs in the management and monitoring of patients on these medications. By embedding these recommendations into routine clinical practice, we can ensure patient safety and optimise the care of individuals living with obesity.”
‘10 Top Tips for the Management of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists within Primary Care’ is published in the journal Obesity Facts.
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