Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of patients who have been (a) prescribed medicinal cannabis through the NHS and (b) denied a prescription for medicinal cannabis through the NHS since its use was legalised in November 2018.

NHS England has set up systems to monitor the prescribing of cannabis-based products for medicinal use via the NHS Business Services Authority and NHS England Controlled Drugs Accountable Officers. We expect the first data to be available by the end of March 2019.

The Department does not hold information on the number of patients denied access to prescriptions for medicinal cannabis.