GP practices are set to receive bonuses of up to £3,000 a year for prescribing weight loss jabs to patients.
The NHS began its mass rollout of weight loss injections last summer, but most of the estimated 2.4 million Britons taking the drugs access them privately.
As part of a bid to improve access to weight loss support, a new scheme will see GP practices offered a bonus of up to £3,000 per surgery for improving obesity care, including prescribing the jabs where necessary.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “I’m determined that access should be based on need, not ability to pay.
“Outside the NHS, we’ve seen those who can spare the cash buying privately, and the proliferation of rogue prescribers peddling dangerous unlicensed drugs that are putting patients at risk.”
He said the new incentive, announced as part of a new GP contract, “will bring the principle of fairness – which has always underpinned the NHS – to obesity jabs”.
The scheme is backed by £25m of ring-fenced funding.
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Practices will have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the bonus, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
Read more: What are the available weight loss jabs?
NHS England has said its phased rollout of the jab Mounjaro could take up to 12 years.
The injection is initially available only for severely obese people who also have other health problems.
Some 220,000 patients have been prioritised for the first three years – but current data suggests even those who are currently eligible cannot access the drugs, and not all GPs currently prescribe them.
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Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown, chair of the Royal College of GPs, has cautioned that widening the rollout “could end up increasing workload in a way that may not be sustainable, and risk raising unrealistic expectations among patients who may not be eligible”.
She added: “While long-overdue investment in general practice is welcome, GPs do not withhold treatment or prescribe based on financial incentives.
“Decisions are guided by clinical judgment and what is safest and most appropriate for individual patients.”
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NHS England previously said if all eligible patients – thought to be over three million – turned up in the first year, and 70% of those were started on treatment, it would take up 18% of GP appointments.
Research published earlier this month suggests women and the middle classes are dominating the take-up of the jab.
