Letter from my GP re GLP1s

[TheActualQueen]

I have been on WLIs since October.
I received a letter from my GP today thanking me for letting them know I’m taking WLIs… (the provider asks permission to tell them) so, 5 months later, telling me that:

“Currently, we are unable to offer NHS support or resources for GLP-1 medications prescribed privately to patients who do not meet the NHS prescribing criteria”

What the hell is the point in my telling them I’m on these meds and what is the point in this letter?!

I’m saving the NHS 100’s of pounds paying for my own meds and now I’m no longer “obese” I’m probably saving them money down the line as I age.

Anyone else had similar?

What were you expecting?

I wasn’t expecting anything other than my GP to note down the information they received on my file I suppose.

It just seems like a complete waste of time sending such a letter. I wonder how many they’ve had to send?

It’s just admin for the sake of admin!

Arse covering, how do they decide though? So you present at gp with gastro issues and they refuse to help because they decide it's related to glp1 use? I mean it might be, might not.
Or are they saying they'll not help you along your way re diet advice, bloods etc.
Never heard a peep from my docs, bet your surgery has had an upturn in appts. related to taking mounjaro and they've thrown their toys out the pram.

The point of telling your GP is so that the prescription goes on your NHS record, and that the GP can flag any potential issues. Your GP may have specifically sent that message to you because they have had lots of people asking for GLP1s who don’t meet the NHS criteria, and they are just being clear that being prescribed it via the NHS is not possible at the moment. I would have just read it, thought “yep, as I already thought” and then filed it in shredding if it was a paper letter or deleted it if electronic.

Well exactly - if I turn up with pancreatitis, are they just going to send me on my way?

Sounds like they are just telling you not to come to them with glp1 related issues because it wasn't prescribed by them. It may be they have had lots of appts so have had to be more clear.

I don’t read that as them not providing support for side effects (whether that is indigestion at one end of the spectrum, or pancreatitis at the other). I just read it as saying they don’t provide support for the medication itself (e.g. they won’t be advising going up or down a dose).

@ElizabethsTailor ,yes I think it probably means something like that, but it would be interesting to see if they were sniffy about giving support with something that might or might not be related to mounjaro, like tiredness or gastro, I can imagine being fobbed off for yet another reason, never mind being female, menopausal, autistic, add taking mounjaro in and I doubt I'd be let through the fucking door these days😂 😂.

Of course your GP needs to know what medications you’re taking. If you go to the GP with various symptoms it may be relevant that you’re on weight loss jabs. It may be that certain medications are contraindicated if a person is using weight loss jabs. People who take weight loss jobs are often secretive about using them especially if they don’t really qualify for them. And don’t appreciate they need to tell a doctor if they need to prescribe you something. Doctors need to know anything that may affect the future care they may need to provide to you.

'NHS support or resources' I'd be interested to know if they mean that they won't help with side effects. Because my GP prescribed me help with the constipation it caused me, but wouldn't help me at the very start when I asked about anti sickness and told me to seek help from where I'd got the meds.

I guess it means if you get sick from the drugs they could refuse to see you? Or they won't answer any questions about them.

Like if you said you'd been vomiting, feeling faint, blurry vision etc and you're on GLP1s, they might turn you away? Or you try and ask advice about doses etc. The latter is fair enough as they may have been getting people clogging up their system asking things about privately prescribed products. Which isn't what the NHS is for.

If it just means we won't prescribe actual GLP1s it seems a waste of paper and NHS resources telling you that as you clearly are purchasing it privately. Not asking them to give you any.

I’m happy to tell them and do meet the private pharmacy prescription guidelines. It just seems like a pointless letter.

Surely if you had severe enough side effects to warrant a visit to the drs they would have to address it - it would be pretty negligent otherwise.

Some GPs are just acting like utter arseholes about these meds,

im lucky my gp, in her exact words, were you’re my patient, and im responsible for your over all care. And she monitored due to a blood pressure issue.

do they write to smokers or heroin addicts saying we can’t help you, no they don’t, but some of them take their personal feelings into account, or purely can’t be arsed with the additional workload, so want to tell you to fuck off in advance, of course they can’t deny you any treatment,

it infuriates me how some of them are behaving,

Maybe your surgery has had a spate of patients taking it but asking them questions which they clearly don't want to deal with if they are not the prescribers?

I've had all my letters logged then after 18 months my GP wrote asking for my consent to respond to one of them! I didn't give my consent. I continued being prescribed. The letter (medexpress) only asks for a response IF I had one of the prohibited medical conditions (which I don't) so I think the surgery misread thinking they had to respond.

Yeah that's what I thought? Maybe they do just mean they won't give advice about dosing or diet etc if you're on it?

I find that quite shocking and pretty short sighted of them. As you say, if they refused to help you if you needed treatment, then they risk being sued for negligence?

I’m in Ireland and despite being over 5 stones overweight still don’t qualify for WLI via the HSE (NHS equivalent) as their criteria for qualification for WLI is equally very limited.

However, my GP will give me a prescription for them that I get fulfilled via the pharmacy privately. (Maybe because we pay for our GP appointments unless you qualify for a medical card?)

Thankfully, this means that my GP will discuss any concerns I have around dosage, micro dosing, long term dosing etc.

I have had a similar thing recently. I was taken very ill and had to go to hospital. I was prescribed new medication when I was discharged so I let my new provider know I was on them. My provider asked me what the doctor had said about taking weight loss injections with the new meds and as I didn't know I enquired at the GP surgery. I had quite a nasty call from the pharmacist who works there telling me that they would have nothing to do with it as I was on a private prescription. He also informed that me that my provider hadn't informed them i was on the injections. Also, I needed to be paying privately to have my underactive thyroid checked as they wouldn't be doing any extra checks to see if my thyroid meds were correct. I'm on the injections because I have a medical condition!

I wonder if they’ve had a spate of people asking for help with them as our GP has a letter up saying that they’ll not provide prescriptions for syringes for golden doses, that there would be a charge for appointments to fill in height/weight/BP/medical forms and that unfortunately not being able to afford it any more wouldn’t mean it could be prescribed on the NHS (apparently a few people had said they couldn’t possibly go cold turkey so needed it prescribed).

I work in a surgery and the battering that GPs are getting is unfair. The GP gets a letter from your GLP provider confirming that you have answered no to whatever questions they asked before they prescribed it. Many patients have not been honest.

GPs can only prescribe GLP1s under certain protocols, for example, if you are diabetic AND meet the critieria.

If there are complications, your GP will of course treat you. Where I work, we have provided antibiotics for those with post surgical infections from overseas surgery.

The GP letter the OP received was probably pre-emptive, having had to turn away a million people from asking for NHS Mounjaro.

This is not what the pharmacist at my GP surgery was saying at all. He was refusing to tell me if the jabs were safe to take with the new medication I had been prescribed by the NHS. He was also saying that if I felt unwell due to problems with my underactive thyroid the GP wouldn't do anything - I would have to be checked privately because my weight loss injections are on a private prescription and they might be causing my thyroid meds to not work properly. He was quite horrible and I felt really told off.

@MissBattleaxe I can see a copy of the letter my GP surgery is sent about my private Mounjaro prescription, and it simply states what has been prescribed, the dose and the date. That's all. It doesn't ask for any information or for a response. The admin person at the GP uploads the information onto my NHS record. I appreciate that's a large burden on the GP surgery that I am not paying for in relation to medication that they are not responsible for, but I cannot opt out of them being notified by some of the prescribers that I have used.

I think the reason that people find the sort of response the OP got to be a bit unnecessary, is that they are sending it out to people who specifically haven't contacted their NHS GP for weight loss help. They haven't asked for any advice, taken up an appointment or any phone time. They've just sorted out their own health, and cannot prevent the pharmacies from sending a letter to the NHS GP.

That’s not what a lot of them are doing, one poster was saying her surgery wanted to actually charge people for every letter received.

if gp;s are struggling they need to escalate, as it was the prime minister who made a statement that he wished gp’s to be involved and to check and support.

so turning it on the patient and making it their fault, is not acceptable. And if someone lies, of course it’s not ok, but the government decided gp;s need to check the patients didn’t demand this.

@TheActualQueen , why are you so angry? They need to know because before they prescribe or perform any procedure they need to be aware of any medication you are taking. They are telling you that if you experience difficulties you need to work with your supplier to resolve them because they have not been provided with additional resources to be able to do so. That all seems reasonable and professional to me.