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The way The Handover works is simple.
If we say anything that offends you, it was just a joke.
If we say anything smart, we meant it… obviously 🌚
👋 Happy Friday. Here’s what we got:
🛒💉 Bootleg Ozempic Available Now On TikTok Shop
🏥 📶 Online Hospitals: The NHS, Now with 100% Less Infrastructure
🧠 QuickBits: Other Top Stories of The Week
If you want to read any previous editions of The Handover, you can on our website.
RESEARCH UPDATE
🛒 💉 Bootleg Ozempic Available Now On TikTok Shop!
Gather round, everyone and meet the newest, shiniest member of the MDT!
Drum roll please
* 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁*
Influencers!…
Yes. Contrary to popular belief, they’re actually super smart!
In fact, they’re above trivial matters like NICE approval, the law, or any of that nonsense you funny duddy doctors always bang on about.
As shown in their latest philanthropic venture to boost public health - becoming the biggest (and only) distributors of the promising Retatrutide!
This shiny new Ozempic evolution is a triple receptor agonist! That’s GLP-1 plus GIP PLUS GCG receptors to boot.
There’s a catch, though.
It’s, err, not actually through clinical trials yet.
But since when has legal red tape ever stopped a good get-rich-quick scheme?
Certainly not now. A bustling black market has burst on the scene, fuelled by Telegram groups and everyone’s favourite brainrot app, TikTok.
Influencers and sellers are garnering huge followings by peddling powder vials and injectable pens. Groups are littered with before-and-after pics, guides on how to self-inject and drug Q&As.
But where do they even get retatrutide from? Great question!
No one knows! But it's dodgy as hell.
Jokes aside, retatrutide does have some real clinical intrigue...
Phase 2 trial results published in NEJM randomised 338 obese adults to either different doses of retatrutide OR placebo and followed them for 48 weeks.
They looked at the % change in body weight at 24 and 48 weeks. Here are the headlines:
At 48 weeks, mean weight reductions ranged from approx −8.7% (low dose retatrutide to −24% (highest dose retatrutide) vs only −2% with placebo.
Not just that, significant weight reductions were already apparent as early as 24 weeks, and only increased with dose and time.
Some small safety caveats: the benefits came with some dose-related GI side effects and transient increases in heart rate.
And just because results from a tightly controlled phase 2 trial are somewhat promising, does NOT mean you should quit med and start slinging suspect vials for 160 quid a pop.
But hey, what do I know 🤷♀
Nothing should stand between you and your beach bod, and if that means illegal Ozempic knock-offs, go off queen!
Just don’t forget to use our code ILLEGAL10 at checkout for a free consultation!*
*behind bars, featuring a police officer.
and speaking of discount codes…
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NHS NEWS
🏥 Online Hospitals: The NHS, Now With 100% Less Infrastructure
Imagine this:
It’s 8:50 am and you’re about to start your morning clinic.
You’ve got your list. A coffee. And six patients in the waiting room… of a Zoom call???
Your POV: Telling Brian, 93, he needs to take his colchicine if he wants the gout to go away.
This might just be a reality with the Government’s latest feverdream to fix the NHS.
An ‘online’ hospital.
What actually got announced?
Essentially, the gov wants to launch an ‘online NHS trust’.
The idea is that patients normally referred to a specialist for specific conditions can opt to go online instead. Then they could see clinicians from across the country rather than trekking to their local. Follow-up care could be virtual too, with scans, tests or procedures booked close to home.
Starmer dropped it last week at the Labour Party Conference.
Due for 2027, they’ve dubbed it NHS Online. How painfully uninventive!
(Like seriously, how about Ctrl + Alt + Heal? - I’ll see myself out)
Apparently, it’ll deliver 8.5 million appointments in its first three years.
That’s big numbers, and 4x an average NHS trust.
Plus, it slots in nicely with the NHS 10-year plan’s aim of digitising care.
‘Virtual wards’ already exist, too.
About 10,000 patients are already treated at home each month through remote monitoring. The government just wants to scale that up and slap a shinier name on it.
But let’s not get too keen. I did some digging about the NHS’s record on IT.
Remember when, in 2022, Guy’s and St Thomas’ entire system crashed because it got too hot (literally) and triggered a critical incident? That lasted weeks.
And don’t forget last year, when up to 3,700 GP practices in England alone couldn’t access patient records because of an IT outage. NHS Offline?
Plus, in 2023, The BMJ found that three-quarters of English NHS Trusts were still using paper for notes or prescribing. Maybe before building the NHS metaverse, we should get electronic records working first.
But it’s not all bad vibes. This could be a good thing: Shorter waiting lists, fewer admissions, more flexibility.
Right now, nobody really knows what to think about it. There are barely any details, just big promises.
Genius or IT horror, we’ll have to see in 2027.
Fingers crossed Brian’s still with us.
QUICKBITS: OTHER NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Condition Plaguing GP… Compassion Fatigue - Have you heard of this term before? Coined in 1992, Compassion Fatigue had somewhat of a renaissance moment at the RCGP Conference 2025. It’s defined as “loss of the ability to nurture” and has apparently been spreading fast in GPland. 60% of clinicians have experienced it, according to a survey. It’s one step above depression and one below quitting work. Well, if grief can have 5 stages, why can’t working in the NHS?
New PrEP Alert! - That’s right. NHS England has approved a new long-acting PrEP injection, cabotegravir. This injection is extra neat because it only has to be given every 2 months, rather than daily like the PrEP pill. 1000 patients are set to benefit, and it brings NHSE one step closer to their goal to kill HIV transmission by 2030. It’s not quite as good as the 6-monthly PrEP injection, but it also doesn’t cost $28,000 a pop, so there’s that.
To PSA, or not to PSA. It gets more confusing every day - Under current UK guidelines, PSA testing can be requested by patients. But for a variety of reasons(celebrity influence), it’s being checked when it’s not needed. A study looking at 1.5 million patients found 72.8% never have a value that would normally warrant a need for the test. Combine that with PSA’s lack of specificity, and we’re basically overdiagnosing for shits and giggles.
Wes Streeting, BMA and A&E Referrals - Wes Streeting and the BMA are like Tom and Jerry. They’re like Drake vs Kendrick Lamar. Holmes and Moriarty, just 90% less intellectually stimulating. Their latest tiff is centred on the new online consultation rules. The BMA GP committee leaked a letter that appeared to send patients to A&E as a form of protest. Wes condemned it as “dangerous extremism”. [one liner here]
Alzheimer’s AI - And finally, ending with a bit of med tech. This AI-powered eye tracking technology can detect genetic mutations linked to Alzheimer’s disease. identifying carriers with 96% accuracy before symptoms and 100% accuracy once symptoms appear. It’s hoping to be a solid alternative to scans and lumbar punctures. But it’s not exactly going to help Alzheimer’s management. But hey, if you’d prefer to know if you’ll get a life-altering condition 10 years before actually you do, this is just for you.
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Fun Fact: Back in the olden days, before we had our modern-day pregnancy tests. Medics would take urine samples and douse a female frog in it. If the frog released its eggs, it meant HCG was present, proving the woman was pregnant.
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