Access to Medicinal Cannabis

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer given in the other place by the Secretary of State to the right honourable Member for Hemel Hempstead. While we are not talking only about children, children having up to 300 seizures a day must leave their parents distraught and desperate. The Government must act much more hastily to ensure people who can benefit from medical cannabis have the means to get access to it on prescription. Can the Minister set out for the House the timescale for the process evaluation announced by the Secretary of State yesterday? This issue has been going on for far too long and needs resolving finally in the next few days.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. The Secretary of State has asked NHS England to act with the utmost urgency and to bring responses forward quickly. I note that this comes in addition to the HEE training model and the NHS England and BSA system to monitor prescriptions for cannabis products. We expect results from that data this month, so we expect more action imminently.