Professor Azeem Majeed

What Professor Azeem Majeed has said

• “the JCVI's recommendation was appropriate. But he added, the absence of a comprehensive public information campaign has led to public confusion and dissatisfaction.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · GPs criticise Covid vaccine messaging as rates continue to rise ↗

• “The evidence used to reach this conclusion is often short-term, small-scale, and of variable quality. More robust, long-term, and consistent evaluations (especially economic studies) are needed.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · More medicines optimisation in community pharmacy could reduce GP pressure ↗

• “The new guidance 'reinforces the central role of GPs' in delivering personalised postnatal care, but that sustainable implementation will 'depend on adequate support for primary care'.”

  head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Maternity & neonatal · 10 Sept 2026 · ICBs told to give GPs extra training on postnatal checks ↗

• “The high demand for the MenB catch-up vaccination was 'predictable given the media coverage and public concern about recent outbreaks among young people'. Hence, implementation should have been planned to ensure there was sufficient NHS capacity to deliver the programme. Restricting delivery largely to community pharmacies has created bottlenecks in some areas.”

  GP and head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Public health & prevention · 10 Sept 2026 · Pharmacy one-off MenB programme excluding GPs has ‘significant problems’ ↗

• “For Pharmacy First to be both safe and effective in the long term, pharmacists must have access to the same level of integrated digital information as GPs. Without that safety net of real-time clinical data and automated alerts, the risk of serious interactions will remain higher than it should be.”

  GP and head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · Regulator raises concerns over inappropriate Pharmacy First antibiotics prescribing ↗

• “This finding challenges the belief that weight loss is the primary driver of benefit, showing instead that waist circumference reductions mediate only about a third of the effect on major adverse cardiovascular events. The findings reinforce the use of semaglutide as a disease-modifying therapy for high-risk patients and not just as a weight-loss tool.”

  Professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · Semaglutide has heart benefits regardless of weight loss, research finds ↗

• “The findings reinforce that tirzepatide – like many anti-obesity treatments – needs to be viewed as a long-term intervention rather than a short-term "quick fix." Discontinuing treatment is likely to reverse much of the benefit unless ongoing behavioural, lifestyle, or maintenance therapy is in place.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · Weight regain after Mounjaro means reversal of health benefits, finds study ↗

• “These patients frequently feel anxious, uncertain, and frustrated, and these emotions can be compounded by limited communication from hospital teams or confusion about what will happen next. As a result, general practices become an important point of contact during this period, with GPs providing ongoing monitoring of symptoms to ensure that any deterioration or new concerns are identified promptly, and offering psychological support to help patients manage the stress of uncertainty.”

  Professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Cancer · 10 Sept 2026 · GPs caught in middle as barely any hospital meets cancer target ↗

• “AI-based triage tools, as evaluated in the Nature Medicine study, are not yet sufficiently reliable to guide decisions about when to seek urgent medical care.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · ChatGPT failed to spot over 50% of medical emergencies, study finds ↗

• “The proposed NICE updates aim to give NHS general practices more precise, evidence-based tools to assess the risk of ovarian cancer. Replacing a single CA125 threshold with age-based thresholds will help GPs identify older women at higher risk more reliably, while reducing unnecessary investigations in younger women who are much less likely to have ovarian cancer.”

  GP and head of the department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London · Cancer · 10 Sept 2026 · NICE proposes new age thresholds for ovarian cancer referral following blood test ↗

• “GPs are frequently the first point of contact and must manage patient distress, clinical uncertainty and the need for urgent referral, often without clear guidance or established care pathways. These cases place additional pressure on general practice, both clinically and administratively.”

  GP and head of the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London · GP access · 10 Sept 2026 · Overseas surgery complications costing NHS up to £19,000 per patient ↗

• “for most GPs, this represents 'an evolution rather than a revolution in care', as many are already prescribing SGLT-2 inhibitors widely.”

  head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Diabetes · 10 Sept 2026 · NICE confirms first-line SGLT-2 prescribing in final type 2 diabetes guidance ↗

• “Ramipril is commonly prescribed in primary care and so any supply disruptions will create problems for patients, general practices and community pharmacies.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · GPs likely to see increased workload due to ramipril shortage ↗

• “The Pulse investigation highlights the persistent postcode lottery in respiratory diagnostic services across England, which will have a direct impact on both general practices and patients. From a practice perspective, the absence or underfunding of a spirometry LES places additional pressure on already stretched primary care teams.”

  GP and head of the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · Exclusive: Quarter of ICBs did not pay GPs to offer spirometry last year ↗

• “An important task for general practices will be the need to manage incoming results and arrange appropriate follow-up care. Patients will receive their results through the NHS App, while clinicians will need confidence that results are transferred automatically, accurately and promptly into the patient's medical record.”

  GP and head of the Department of Primary Care & Public Health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · NHS England considering self-testing routes for cholesterol and prostate cancer ↗

• “General practices are already under considerable pressure, and these recommendations will substantially increase demand for clinical assessment, prescribing, monitoring and behavioural support.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · GPs seek clarity over semaglutide rollout for overweight patients with CVD ↗

• “The National Booking Service should complement, rather than replace, practices' own recall systems. Many patients at higher risk from influenza – such as older people, those with frailty, learning disabilities, severe mental illness or limited digital access – are more likely to respond to personalised invitations from their own general practice.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Respiratory (asthma/COPD) · 10 Sept 2026 · GPs to be enabled to use National Booking Service for this autumn’s flu campaign ↗

• “if benefits seen in clinical trials are replicated in the real-world, it would be beneficial for patients and the NHS. He added that finerenone should be viewed as 'an addition to an increasingly comprehensive treatment strategy rather than as a replacement for existing therapies'.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · NICE recommends finerenone for chronic heart failure in final draft guidance ↗

• “Cholesterol should not be considered in isolation, and management decisions require an assessment of a person's overall cardiovascular risk. In practice, the work involved in completing this assessment, providing lifestyle advice, prescribing lipid-lowering therapy where appropriate, arranging monitoring and recording the information in the patient's medical record will fall on general practice teams.”

  head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Heart disease & stroke · 10 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies to offer seven-minute cholesterol checks as part of NHS England pilot ↗

• “GPs 'should strengthen frailty identification and follow-up by ensuring routine assessment of patients aged 65+, clinically validating frailty findings, and consistently delivering core interventions such as structured medication reviews, falls-risk assessment, enriched summary care records and personalised care planning, while integrating with community and social care teams to provide proactive support'.”

  GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Elderly care & frailty · 8 Sept 2026 · Lack of GP targets resulting in too few frailty assessments ↗

• “If GPs are expected to work from or alongside these centres, this should strengthen continuity of care and support existing primary care services. Any expansion of GPs' roles must therefore be matched by investment in the primary care workforce, rather than relying on an already overstretched service to do more with the same resources.”

  GP and head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London · Mental health · 12 Aug 2026 · Government announces 100 community mental health centres to ‘work alongside GPs’ ↗

Where Professor Azeem Majeed has been quoted

1. Menopause questions to be added to NHS Health Checkspulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
2. GPs criticise Covid vaccine messaging as rates continue to risepulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
3. More medicines optimisation in community pharmacy could reduce GP pressurepulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
4. ICBs told to give GPs extra training on postnatal checkspulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
5. Pharmacy one-off MenB programme excluding GPs has ‘significant problems’pulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
6. Regulator raises concerns over inappropriate Pharmacy First antibiotics prescribingpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
7. Semaglutide has heart benefits regardless of weight loss, research findspulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
8. Weight regain after Mounjaro means reversal of health benefits, finds studypulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
9. GPs caught in middle as barely any hospital meets cancer targetpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
10. ChatGPT failed to spot over 50% of medical emergencies, study findspulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
11. NICE proposes new age thresholds for ovarian cancer referral following blood testpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
12. Overseas surgery complications costing NHS up to £19,000 per patientpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
13. NICE confirms first-line SGLT-2 prescribing in final type 2 diabetes guidancepulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
14. GPs likely to see increased workload due to ramipril shortagepulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
15. Exclusive: Quarter of ICBs did not pay GPs to offer spirometry last yearpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
16. NHS England considering self-testing routes for cholesterol and prostate cancerpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
17. GPs seek clarity over semaglutide rollout for overweight patients with CVDpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
18. GPs to be enabled to use National Booking Service for this autumn’s flu campaignpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
19. NICE recommends finerenone for chronic heart failure in final draft guidancepulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
20. Pharmacies to offer seven-minute cholesterol checks as part of NHS England pilotpulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
21. Lack of GP targets resulting in too few frailty assessmentspulsetoday.co.uk · 8 Sept 2026
22. Government announces 100 community mental health centres to ‘work alongside GPs’pulsetoday.co.uk · 12 Aug 2026