Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what public resources are being used by the NHS or other public bodies to research psychedelic treatments; and whether they are considering the use of those treatments by the NHS.

The Government has funded two high quality research awards concerning psychedelic treatments over the past five financial years, totalling £2,947,596. The first is a placebo-controlled, randomised, proof of concept trial to investigate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of psilocybin therapy in opioid use disorder, with an award identification code of NIHR206736, which aims to understand if the psychedelic compound psilocybin, together with psychological support, could be a safe and effective way of preventing relapse in individuals with opioid addiction. The second is a feasibility randomized controlled trial of single-dose psilocybin in unipolar depressive disorder resistant to standard treatments, with an award identification code of CS-2017-17-007, which aims to conduct a randomised controlled trial of psilocybin in patients with treatment resistant depression, to investigate whether an open label trial design is feasible and practical in that patient group, and to collect the data needed to design future trials.

The Department recognises the importance of research in identifying and developing safe and effective medicines, including those derived from controlled substances. The Department is working closely with the Home Office and other key stakeholders across the Government to review the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ report that considered the barriers to research regarding Schedule 1 controlled drugs. The Home Office will publish their response in due course, and the Department will support further work to remove the barriers to this type of research, enabling research that can improve people’s health and wellbeing, whilst maintaining the necessary controls for safety.

The Government wants National Health Service patients across the United Kingdom to be able to benefit from timely access to safe, clinically effective, and cost-effective new medicines. Any company wishing to bring a medicinal product to the market in the UK needs to apply to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for a marketing authorisation, and must engage with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. This is the basis of all decisions on the funding of medicines by the NHS.