Weight loss and Exercise

Weight loss and Exercise

City of York Council (CYC) Health Trainers

The CYC health trainers offer free and confidential health and wellbeing support

They off one-to-one support and guidance, face-to-face or remotely, on the following:

• healthy eating advice and weight management
• finding new ways to be more active
• quitting smoking
• reducing your alcohol intake
• helping you find groups and activities to get back out in the community

Self refer via their website.

parkrun

We are a #parkrunpractice - this is an initiative which enables GP practices to socially prescribe physical activity by referring patients to take part in a parkrun. You can read more about parkrun here.

There are three parkrun events in York based at: The Knavesmire (York parkrun), York Sport (Heslington parkrun) and at New Earswick sports club (New Earswick parkrun). Our staff are often found running a local parkrun at 9am every Saturday morning and we run volunteer takeover events.

5K Your Way: Move Against Cancer run a monthly support event at Heslington parkrun on the last Saturday of every month. 

There is also a junior parkrun on Sunday mornings at 9am on The Knavesmire.

Better Health

The Healthwise program is for York residents or patients from a York GP surgery. It is designed to assist people who are currently inactive with medical conditions or other specialist requirements that prevent them from entering mainstream exercise.

For more information about how it works and what activities are available, visit their website.

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Weight management services

The NHS provides a wide range of advice and tools to support healthy weight loss. We understand that many people are looking for support in managing their weight, the local ICB are working hard to improve access to services and new treatments for people living with obesity. 

The practice are getting a lot of requests to prescribe Semaglutide (Wegovy), Liraglutide (Saxenda) or Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight loss purposes. While NICE have approved the use of GLP-1 medications for obesity via the NHS recently, this is not available to us in general practice to prescribe. If you have a raised BMI and would like to discuss other options to support you with weight loss do get in touch to arrange a routine appointment. Referral to the specialist tier 3 obesity clinic has specific criteria but locally you can also seek help with obesity and weight loss via the council Health Trainers or Healthwise - details above.

We are aware that some of our patients are seeking GLP-1 medications privately, if you are unsure if your private provider has informed us that you are taking the medication - please let us know. It is important we have an up to date record of medication so we can ensure safe prescribing of your other medicines.

On 6th October 2025, Humber and North Yorkshire ICB announced the new primary care weight management service to support the prescribing of mounjaro for eligible patients. Patients can self refer if they have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of ≥40 kg/m2 (or 37.5 kg/m2 for people from South Asian, Chinese, other Asian, Middle Eastern, Black African or African-Caribbean ethnic backgrounds) and at least 4 out of 5 of these ‘qualifying’ health problems:

• Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD)
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Dyslipidaemia (raised cholesterol/triglycerides)
• Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA)
• Type 2 diabetes 

Patients can self-refer using the referral form here. Please read more about the weight management service here before you self-refer.

There will be a central point for referrals that will be managed by Yorkshire Health Partners (YHP). YHP will carry out an initial triage process to make sure patients fulfil the eligibility criteria and do not have any contraindications to taking tirzepatide (mounjaro). Patients will then be referred to a community pharmacy, where an independent prescribing pharmacist will manage the initiation and dose titration of tirzepatide for a period of up to 12 months.

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Private surgery

Recently, we have had a number of patients seeking bariatric weight loss surgery (e.g. gastric sleeve) abroad. Please note that the NHS are not funded to provide routine aftercare for non-NHS private surgery. Patients will need to seek follow up care, including monitoring of bloods, through a private service either in this country or abroad. We cannot provide this service.

If you have this surgery privately in the UK, you are asked to have private, specialist follow up by your clinic for at least 2 years before being discharged to the GP for ongoing follow up.