WATCH: Addressing the barriers to accessing medical cannabis on the NHS

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Campaigners Hannah Deacon and Matt Hughes of Medcan Support, and Professor Mike Barnes, discuss the barriers to accessing medical cannabis through the NHS.

A one-off event, hosted by Drug Science, Medcan Support and Patient-led Engagement for Access (PLEA) at the House of Lords this week, brought together MPs, regulatory bodies and charities to highlight the lack of NHS prescriptions for medical cannabis.

More than three years since the former Home Secretary Sajid Javid, changed the law to allow for medical cannabis prescriptions, only three have been issued on the NHS.

Families and campaigners joined researchers in highlighting the current real-world evidence base and the need for population-wide prescribing for children suffering daily, life-threatening seizures.

A study conducted by Drug Science on children with intractable epilepsy, found that cannabis-based medicines are not only safe but offer a 96 per cent chance of reducing seizures.

The best clinical outcome of typically prescribed NHS medications, such as benzodiazepines or Epidyolex, is less than 50 per cent.

Co-founders of Medcan Support, Hannah Deacon and Matt Hughes, whose children Alfie and Charlie, both have prescriptions for medical cannabis, spoke to Cannabis Health before the event.

Alfie has had a prescription through the NHS since June 2018, but Charlie, who has been taking the medicine since 2019, is only able to access one privately.

Both say regulators and government need to take the real-world evidence into account and provide urgent funding to help families afford the unsustainable costs of private prescriptions.

Prof Barnes, chair of the Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society, who was granted the first licence to prescribe cannabis for Alfie, called for GPs to be allowed to prescribe and for cannabis to be considered a botanical medicine rather than a pharmaceutical.

Deacon said: “We want regulators to accept that there is an issue and to work with us on how we move forward. At the moment we are at a crossroads where nothing is changing, when actually there is so much the government can do to help the development and the prescribing of this medicine, to not just these children, but the many millions of people who could benefit.”

Watch the full interview above or via our Youtube channel