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"Weight-loss jabs" could be used to get unemployed people back to work, the health secretary has suggested

Getting long-term unemployed people back into the British workforce has been a goal and a puzzle for successive governments. Health secretary West Streeting has suggested that "weight-loss jabs" could be offered as one arm of a strategy to aid the return to work and reduce pressures on the NHS.

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"Weight-loss jabs" have entered the mainstream in the last few years, with everyone from celebs to politicians using them to slim down. These injected medicines started life as, and continue to be described as by manufacturers, prescription medicines for helping to manage type 2 diabetes. They lower appetites and slow down digestion, which is how they've found a second life as "weight-loss jabs".

Writing in the Telegraph, health secretary Wes Streeting said: "Our widening waistbands are also placing significant burden on our health service, costing the NHS £11 billion a year even more than smoking. And it's holding back our economy."

He added: "Illness caused by obesity causes people to take an extra four sick days a year on average, while many others are forced out of work altogether."

A study will be conducted by pharmaceutical firm Lilly and a Manchester-based health organisation to see what impact these "weight-loss jabs" could have on joblessness and the pressure on NHS services in Manchester. Results could then inform a wider strategy across the country.

Streeting wrote: "The long-term benefits of these drugs could be monumental in our approach to tackling obesity. For many people, these weight-loss jabs will be life-changing, help them get back to work, and ease the demands on our NHS."

Dr Dolly van Tulleken, who specialises in obesity policy and is a visiting researcher at the MRC epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were “some serious ethical, financial and efficacy considerations with such an approach, such as looking at people, or measuring people based on their potential economic value, rather than primarily based on their needs and their health needs. It’s incredibly important that people in the UK access healthcare based on their health need rather than their potential economic value.”

She added: “We know from across so much research, how popular these interventions are. People want the government to act. They want to live in a healthy environment; he is absolutely on the side of the public.”

Have your say! How far is "too far" when it comes to helping long-term unemployed people back into work? Comment below, and join in on the conversation.