Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 28 February 2017.
Thank you, leader of the house. We know that Wales was the first country in the UK to approve Sativex, which is a cannabis-based drug, and that was approved back in 2014. The evidence from patients who are prescribed Sativex is consistent and clear: it’s effective, it reduces pain, it reduces spasms, but access to the drug is patchy. A survey for the MS Society found that only 1 per cent of people who said they were eligible for Sativex actually had access to it. The survey also suggested that the number of people living with MS who take disease-modifying therapies appears to be lower than in Scotland or England. There’s a real concern that other new drugs and treatments coming through the system will be equally as difficult to access. If you accept that there is a patchy availability of these drugs, and that that is a major obstacle to the quality of life for citizens in Wales, what resources is the Welsh Government prepared to allocate to the infrastructure around MS, around MS nursing and neurology in order to help patients get the support that they need?