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 effectiveness of NHS and medical professional body guidelines on the prescription of medicinal cannabis in ensuring the eligibility for prescription of patients for whom that treatment might be advantageous.

The Medical Director of NHS England, Professor Steve Powis, and the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, have written to relevant clinicians to coincide with the coming into force of the rescheduling of cannabis-based medicinal products. The guidance in this letter, which signposts interim clinical advice commissioned from the British Paediatric Neurology Association and the Royal College of Physicians, is in line with normal clinical practice. The decision to prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use will be made on a case-by-case basis, based on clinical need and in-line with existing governance procedures for prescribing unlicensed medicines.

The Department has commissioned the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to produce clinical guidance by October 2019, which will update and replace the interim advice.