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 (a) effectiveness of Sativex as a treatment for and (b) adequacy of access to Savitex on the NHS by patients with aggressively advancing relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) considered the clinical and cost effectiveness of Sativex in the development of its clinical guideline on the management of multiple sclerosis published in 2014. NICE was not able to recommend Sativex as a cost effective use of National Health Service resources for the treatment of spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis. Sativex is not therefore likely to be routinely funded by the NHS for use in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, although clinicians are able to make a request for exceptional funding for individual patients who they think may benefit from treatment.