Requests for medical cannabis are on the rise, say GPs
INCREASING numbers of patients are asking their family doctors for medical cannabis, research shows.
The study of more than 2,000 GPs and community NHS staff found they were under growing pressure to prescribe the drugs, even though only hospital specialists could authorise them.
Six in 10 GP partners and one in three nurses working in primary care said they had
Both barrels
experienced an increase in patients asking about medicines that contain cannabis, according to the survey by Cogora, the healthcare magazine publishers.
Such drugs became legal on prescription last November, when health officials warned that they would only be prescribed for a “very small number of patients”.
NHS guidelines state that prescriptions are only likely to be prescribed for adults with vomiting or nausea caused by chemotherapy, muscle stiffness caused by multiple sclerosis and for children with rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
The legalisation of medical cannabis follows several high-profile cases, including those of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell, young epilepsy sufferers whose conditions appeared to be helped by cannabis oil.
The guidance says a decision to prescribe cannabis products should only be made where other treatment options have been exhausted. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “It’s really important that people understand GPs will not be able to prescribe cannabis to them.
“The change in the law regarding medical cannabis only affects a very small number of people who have an unmet clinical need and where there is evidence that it may have some benefit, and in those instances it can only be prescribed by certain specialist doctors.”
Last month Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said introducing medicinal cannabis had “opened a Pandora’s box”, with patients believing the drug can cure multiple conditions.
A mother who tried to bring medical cannabis into the UK to help her severely epileptic daughter broke down in tears after it was confiscated at the airport. Emma Appleby flew back from Holland yesterday, carrying a supply of oil for nineyear-old Teagan.