Why are so few doctors prescribing medical cannabis in the UK?
For our Known Unknowns report, we took a dive deep into the perceptions, concerns and hopes of UK clinicians for medical cannabis, which, although being legal since 2018, still sits on the fringes of the UK healthcare system with prescribing remaining low. The report recognised a number of challenges the industry must surmount to move forward, and in particular if cannabis is to become mainstream as a treatment, that there are a number of key concerns that currently exist amongst clinicians that must be addressed.
In this report we also spoke to business and founders in the industry pursuing interesting solutions to the barriers we identified, including Arjun Rajyagor, founder and CTO of Script Assist (formerly Sana Healthcare). In the report, he explained Script Assist’s unique approach in an industry space that is currently led by private medical cannabis clinics:
“We are bringing in a framework with a structured approach to cannabis prescribing. This allows clinicians and patients to keep track of progress against very specific goals to understand whether the medicine is working. A huge part of Script Assist is the communication between the patient and doctor.
It’s really important to stress that this is not a platform for a cannabis company. It’s independent and unbiased for clinicians to understand how their patient is doing and collect real-world evidence in the process.”
For this episode of Volteface TV, our director Paul North caught up with Arjun to talk about how the platform has progressed since the report and how Script Assist could transform cannabis prescribing for UK patients, doctors and private practices face in the UK.
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