Epilepsy: Cannabis

(asked on 1st March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason only three NHS prescriptions for medical cannabis have been issued to children with severe intractable epilepsy since the law was changed in November 2018 to enable those prescriptions to be made in specialist cases.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 8th March 2022

The licensed cannabis-based medicine Epidyolex is prescribed and routinely funded by the National Health Service for two rare forms of epilepsy - Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Clinical guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence demonstrate a need for more evidence to support routine prescribing and funding decisions for unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use. We continue to call on manufacturers to conduct this research and we are working with regulatory, research and NHS partners to establish clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of these products.

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