Speeches by Cooper.

“Okay. That is very helpful. Thank you.”

“That is very interesting. Again for the record, basically once NICE makes a positive recommendation, NHS service providers are required to make it available to patients within three months as a default, but there is an exception to that. Based on your recommendation, NHS England estimated that 2.8 million patients woul…”

“Okay. That is helpful. Let’s talk about how you are getting this information. As we have talked about, there is currently large private use of GLP-1s and we have the yellow card system to monitor side effects. Is the private use of GLP-1s having any effect on the return on yellow cards or are you seeing other ways of i…”

“Excellent. I thank my hon. Friend, who has nicely paid tribute to them. Well done. What has been so striking about the work we are doing is the level of local energy in our community. People care deeply about these spaces, and they want to see them thriving again. We have an opportunity to do that in a way that reflect…”

“Okay, so just to be clear, you are not seeing any difference in the side effect profile from a type 2 diabetes patient using GLP-1s to a non-type 2 diabetes person using it for weight loss? The side effect profile is reasonably similar?”

“I appreciate that and I appreciate the prevalence issue. While you cannot take an accurate indicator of prevalence from reporting, again given the extensive licensing that MHRA has done over the years, is the reporting that you are seeing, taking into account the self-reporting nature of it and the private prescribing …”

“Given that GLP-1 products have not been used as weight loss tools for nearly as long as they have been used for diabetes type 2, are you concerned about an increase in side effects being reported as GLP-1s are used more frequently for weight loss?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) for his continued advocacy. As someone who lived down the road in Huntingdon for many years, I am delighted to hear that Peterborough lido is up and running again, which is fantastic. Lidos are…”

“The yellow card reporting has been around for a long time and there have been conversations about whether it is fit for purpose or they need to use something else. Your opinion is yellow card reporting is still the best way of assessing side effects coming forward or adverse impact?”

“So taking into account all the other things that could be put in place to prevent or reduce obesity, NICE still thinks that the £15.2 billion should be spent specifically in this area, or the opportunity cost is taken into account?”

“You have data across a wide variety of medicines so you can see the parameters of what you may expect.”

“I understand that, but over the course of 12 years the highest priority people, who may not be high priority now—I am surmising this—may well become much higher priority in those 12 years. At that three-year review period if we have been reasonably unable to spend £15.2 billion over five years, has NICE factored in the…”

“When you say you go out looking for it, what do you do?”

“Thanks, panel, for being here. I am going to focus on questions around side effects and NICE appraisal. I will start with Andy and the MHRA. GLP-1s as we know have a long-standing history. They have been used for more than a decade to treat type 2 diabetes so we are well aware of their profile in that regard. In terms …”

“Just to be clear there, you are not seeing more side effect reporting for the new use of this established medicine than you would expect? Is it within expected parameters?”

“If you can find out that would be very interesting. Online pharmacies are becoming more prevalent and people are increasingly using them, so it is good to know if our reporting systems are fit for purpose in the digital world. Thank you. I will move on, John, to NICE appraisals of these weight loss drugs, which are qui…”

“It would be interesting to see those figures.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Does somebody have access to that data?”

“12. What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his polices of recent trends in national wellbeing indicators.”