What Qualifies You for Wegovy: Eligibility Explained Step by Step

Step 1: Does your BMI meet the licensed threshold?

The starting point is your BMI. Under the Wegovy licence, the threshold is 30 or above, defined clinically as obesity. If your BMI sits between 27 and 29.9, you can still qualify, but only if you also have at least one weight-related health condition, and you can read through the full set of qualifications for Wegovy if you want to see exactly how those conditions are assessed. Conditions that count include type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, dyslipidaemia (raised cholesterol or triglycerides), obstructive sleep apnoea and established cardiovascular disease.

One thing worth saying plainly: a lot of people assume the BMI cutoffs are rigid and universal. They are not quite that simple. For adults from South Asian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Black African or African-Caribbean backgrounds, UK clinical guidance applies thresholds that are 2.5 kg/m² lower, recognising that metabolic risk appears at lower BMIs in these populations. The NICE appraisal of semaglutide (TA875) sets out this detail clearly. So if you are near a threshold, your background is part of the clinical picture too.

BMI is a starting gate, not the whole race. A prescriber will want the wider context before any decision is made. You can check where you stand with the NHS BMI calculator before a consultation.

Step 2: What else does a prescriber assess beyond the number?

Once BMI and any qualifying conditions are established, the prescriber looks at your full medical history. This is where individual variation matters most, and it is also where the misconception that online consultations are superficial tends to dissolve. A thorough assessment covers your current medicines (some interact meaningfully with semaglutide) any history of pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, thyroid conditions or eating disorders, and whether you are pregnant, breastfeeding or planning a pregnancy. Wegovy is not recommended in any of those situations.

There are also specific contraindications: a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 means semaglutide is not suitable. If you have come across the drug under a different name and want to be sure you are reading about the same medicine, a quick look at what the other name for Wegovy is can clear that up before you go any further. The NHS medicines page for semaglutide runs through these in plain language if you want a detailed read before a consultation.

At nume, a GPhC-registered Independent Prescriber reads your consultation personally the same day, not software, not a templated approval queue. Identity is verified by photo ID, and weight is confirmed on a live video call. It is a clinical review in the full sense. If you are curious about who oversees that process, our clinical team page has the detail.

Step 3: NHS criteria versus private, the practical difference

This is where the path splits depending on how you plan to access treatment. On the NHS, Wegovy is available through specialist weight management services under NICE TA875, with tighter qualifying criteria: a BMI of 35 or above (or 32.5 for some ethnic backgrounds) plus at least one weight-related comorbidity, used for a maximum of two years as part of a multidisciplinary programme. Waiting lists for those services are commonly long, and not every area has capacity.

Private treatment through a regulated online pharmacy follows the licensed eligibility criteria from the medicine's SmPC rather than the NHS commissioning criteria, so the BMI thresholds are lower (30, or 27 with a comorbidity). No referral is needed, and there is no waiting list, though clinical assessment is just as rigorous. For an honest look at what private treatment costs and what that covers, the Wegovy cost page lays it out without the small print.

A quick verification step worth taking with any online pharmacy: check it on the GPhC pharmacy register. nume's registration number is 9012878, and that link will confirm it directly.

Step 4: What happens if you qualify, and what if you do not?

Qualifying means a prescription is issued and treatment begins at the lowest dose, 0.25mg weekly, with a gradual titration schedule your prescriber manages over subsequent months. The titration exists to give your body time to adjust, gastrointestinal side effects are most common early on and typically settle as the dose increases slowly. Detailed guidance on timing and routine is covered by the daily timing page for anyone thinking ahead to what treatment actually looks like week to week.

If you do not currently meet the thresholds, that is worth knowing clearly rather than vaguely, it means a different conversation about what options do exist. Wegovy is not the only licensed weight-management treatment available privately; an overview of the options is on the weight-loss treatments page. And if you have been on a branded or generic form of semaglutide and are wondering whether moving across to Wegovy specifically is straightforward, the answer is nuanced enough that the page on switching between Wegovy and semaglutide is worth reading before you make any changes. And if you have been on Ozempic for diabetes and are wondering whether a switch is possible, the answer is nuanced enough to deserve its own read on the Ozempic-to-Wegovy switch page.

The clearest next step for most people is a free consultation. A prescriber can give you a definitive answer in a way no eligibility article quite can. Check your eligibility with our clinical team, it costs nothing and commits you to nothing.