Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of prescribing medicinal cannabis on the NHS.

Licenced cannabis-based medicines are routinely prescribed and funded on the NHS. However, the latest National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines (written in 2019), demonstrate a clear need for more evidence to support routine prescribing and funding for unlicensed cannabis-based products.

We are working with regulatory, research and NHS partners to establish clinical trials to prove products safe and effective. We need the cannabis industry to come forward and work with us on this.