Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the prescription of e-cigarettes by GPs as part of smoking cessation programmes.
There is a route through the Medicines Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for e-cigarettes to be granted a medicinal licence for prescriptions on the National Health Service. To date, one company has been granted a license, but decided against bringing the product to market as a prescribed medicine. This is ultimately a commercial decision.