Pulse has just reported on the NICE consultation on their draft guidance on prescribing medicinal cannabis. It proposes to introduce shared care agreements, in which the initial prescriber is a specialist doctor and then the subsequent prescriber could be healthcare professionals, including GPs. We are aware that this is a new and specialist area of treatment and prescribing and therefore requires specialist teams to be involved in properly assessing, and then if appropriate, treating and monitoring relevant patients. This would be the case for any very specialist drug and much remains to be seen as we move forward. The way to improve access to this assessment and treatment will be to properly resource specialist services and enable hospital services to access electronic prescribing systems. The GPC and BMA will be responding to the consultation.
The full Pulse article can be read here:
