Britain’s pharmacy regulator has enacted strict new protocols in a bid to prevent Brits from lying about their weight to get their hands on slimming jabs, and becoming dangerously ill.
The injections are designed to help type 2 diabetes patients and obese people control their blood sugar levels and lose weight.
But doctors have long told how they are treating increasing numbers of slim women who end up in hospital after falsely telling online chemists they are overweight to pass eligibility checks.
From today, however, patients must now undergo stricter consultations to be prescribed the jabs, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has said.
They have been added to the regulator’s list of ‘high-risk medicines’, meaning it is no longer enough to prescribe the drugs following an email chat, from questionnaires or by people sending in photos of themselves.
Instead, the injections require extra safeguards — pharmacies must independently verify the weight, height or BMI, rather than assume information provided by the person is accurate.
This could be achieved either through a video consultation, an in person consultation, checking their clinical records or contacting another healthcare provider such as their GP, the GPhC said.
The injections, like Ozempic and Wegovy, are designed to help type 2 diabetes patients control their blood sugar levels or for obese people to lose weight for health purposes
Verifying the information provided by the patient ‘would not be appropriate’ via a phone call alone, the regulator added.
Under the new guidance, clinicians must also get the patient’s consent to contact their GP about the prescription.
All relevant information about the prescription should then be ‘actively’ shared with other health professionals involved.
The GPhC now also requires all pharmacies to make regular checks on the patients to ensure it is still appropriate to prescribe the drug.
Companies must show there are no conflicts of interest such as offering incentives to issue prescriptions — following reports of some providers setting targets for staff.
Those who fail to comply could face fitness to practise investigations or inspections. Action has already been taken against more than a dozen pharmacies.
Duncan Rudkin, chief executive at the GPhC, said: ‘The message of this updated guidance is clear: online pharmacies should only supply a medicine if the prescriber has had an appropriate consultation with the person, and has made sure they have all the necessary information to check if that medicine is safe and suitable for them.
‘We know online pharmacy services can provide a very valuable service.
From today, patients must now undergo stricter consultations to be prescribed the jabs, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has said
‘But, through our inspections and investigations, we’ve seen too many cases of medicines being supplied inappropriately online and putting people at risk.’
Last month, MailOnline revealed that some of Britain’s biggest pharmacies including Boots, Superdrug and Rowlands had already put new personalised measures in place to stop patients who are a healthy weight from accessing Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy.
Such initiatives include front and side full body photographs — with the date visible — half hour long video Teams calls and mandatory follow-up photographic proof of progress on the anti-obesity drugs.
Like any medication, the jabs are known to cause side effects that vary in both frequency and severity.
Reported problems include constipation, fatigue, stomach pain, headaches and dizziness.
In January, a Mail on Sunday investigation also revealed almost 400 Brits had been hospitalised — some with life-threatening complications — since the rollout of jabs such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Saxenda.
Most of the reactions were gastrointestinal issues such as persistent nausea and diarrhoea, which leave some patients with ‘severe dehydration’.
But some doctors warned they were seeing patients with ‘serious, life-threatening complications’ including seizures, bowel obstruction and inflammation of the pancreas, known as pancreatitis.
Under NHS guidelines, only patients who have a body mass index (BMI) of over 35 and at least one weight-related health problem like high blood pressure, or those who have a BMI of 30 to 34.9 and meet the criteria for referral to a specialist weight management service, should be prescribed Wegovy.
UK law forbids the sale of such drugs without a prescription from a medical professional.
In December, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued a warning to advertisers, businesses and influencers to remove online and social media ads for weight-loss prescription-only medicines targeted at members of the public.
This followed a MailOnline investigation that found social media influencers were being encouraged to illegally promote prescription weight-loss jabs to their thousands of followers.
