More than 300,000 Scots now using private weight

More than 300,000 people in Scotland, nearly five per cent of the population, are now accessing weight-loss drugs privately.

New data from Simple Online Pharmacy, one of the UK’s largest private providers of GLP-1 medicines, estimates that around two million people across the UK are receiving drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro outside the NHS. Scotland’s share is believed to exceed 300,000.

The figures underline the soaring demand for the new class of appetite-suppressing injections, which have transformed treatment for obesity internationally but remain restricted on the NHS.

Professor Naveed Sattar, a leading cardiometabolic expert at the University of Glasgow , said the surge reflects how modern environments have made it harder for people to control their weight.

Speaking to BBC S