I thank the Deputy for his question and acknowledge his ongoing work in this area, both in terms of the MCAP initially and the evolution of the programme. As he will be aware, we launched the medical cannabis access programme in 2021 for three conditions initially: refractory epilepsy, spasticity as a result of MS and nausea from chemotherapy. Since the inception of the programme, 55 separate patients have availed of it - 52 adults and three minors, mainly for spasticity associated with MS. There were 38 patients in that category.
As the Deputy quite rightly said, we have conducted a review now that we have the programme in place to see if there is a clinical case for it to be expanded. It certainly is something that I am very open to. At my request, the HRB was requested to carry out an exercise of initial evidence-gathering, the results of which have been published. The publication is now subject to clinical review. We want to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to broaden the scope of the conditions that could be treated under MCAP. I am certainly very open to it. I will be entirely led by the clinicians on the board. As the Deputy will be aware, I allocated significant funding to get the MCAP initiative moving.
On a second positive note, since we launched MCAP, which is for the unlicensed medicinal cannabis products, we now have several licensed cannabis products. What I hear back from the clinical community, is that the preference of clinicians, where possible, is to prescribe on the licensed programme because they argue that there is greater clinical evidence from trials, and we are seeing prescriptions under the licensed programme increase, which is very positive.