Medical cannabis, your GP and shared care

GP communication is not the same as GP prescribing.

A GP cannot initiate an unlicensed cannabis-based product for medicinal use. The legal supply route requires a prescription or direction from a doctor on the GMC Specialist Register. A specialist should prescribe within their competence and, under NHS England guidance, the decision should generally be agreed by a multidisciplinary team.

Your GP can still play an important role in joined-up care without taking over the prescription.

Why telling your GP matters.

The GMC says the prescribing doctor should ask for consent to contact the GP or other treating doctors and share information when the episode of care is completed. If a patient refuses consent, or has no GP, the prescriber should explain the risks of not sharing the information.

• Your current medicines and relevant history can be considered together.
• Your NHS record can reflect treatment received privately.
• Other clinicians have better information during urgent or future care.
• Responsibility for monitoring and follow-up can be made explicit.

This is about continuity and safety. It is not asking the GP for permission for a specialist to make an independent private prescribing decision.

What shared care actually means.

Shared care is a specific arrangement in which a specialist initiates treatment and ongoing prescribing or monitoring is divided with general practice under an agreed protocol. It is more than sending the GP a clinic letter.

If your GP declines.

1. Ask whether the refusal concerns prescribing responsibility, monitoring, information-sharing, or all three.
2. Ask your clinic to state clearly who remains responsible for prescribing, monitoring, results and urgent queries.
3. Keep the clinic and GP informed of material medicine changes through the channels each service accepts.
4. Do not stop, change or obtain replacement medicine based on an administrative disagreement; ask the responsible prescriber or pharmacist.
5. If you believe communication or care has failed, use the relevant service complaint route.

Where a GP declines shared care, BMA guidance says responsibility for ongoing care and prescribing remains with the private provider. A patient should not be left to coordinate an undefined handoff alone.

How to raise the conversation constructively.

You could say: “I receive specialist private treatment and would like this recorded so my care is joined up. I am not assuming the practice will take over prescribing. What information do you need from the clinic, and how should it be sent?”

Ask the clinic for a factual treatment summary, current prescription information, monitoring plan and a named route for professional queries. Avoid presenting shared care as an entitlement or asking reception staff to resolve a clinical-governance question.

Historical access figures need a date.

A Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society document described three full-spectrum NHS prescriptions and around 40 specialist prescribers in February 2021. Those figures illustrate the pathway at that time; they are not a current 2026 national count and should not be presented as one. Current individual access still depends on specialist assessment and the applicable NHS or private pathway.