A NEW expert panel of clinicians is to be established to speed up the process of prescribing cannabis-based medicines to individual patients, following the outrage over the case of Co Tyrone boy Billy Caldwell.
However, the government have said they will not lift the ban on prescribing cannabis-based medications more generally.
The announcement follows widespread outrage over the confiscation from Charlotte Caldwell of cannabis oil supplies which she brought from Canada for her 12-year-old son who has acute epilepsy.
Ms Caldwell (50) from Castlederg, credits the oil with keeping her son's seizures at bay, saying he was seizure-free for more than 300 days while using it, but THC is restricted in the UK.
However on Friday, the child was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital having suffered multiple seizures.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid granted a 20-day emergency licence and the oil was returned to his mother and Billy was discharged from hospital early on Monday afternoon.
There was confusion after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested that Mr Javid had already launched a review.
Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I don't think anyone who followed that story could sensibly say that we are getting the law on this kind of thing right.
"I think we all know that we need to find a different way."
Asked whether the parents of children like Billy would still be facing similar problems in months' or weeks' time, Mr Hunt replied: "I sincerely hope not."
Ms Caldwell has called for an urgent review of the law on the substance, which is banned in the UK despite being available in many other countries.
Speaking outside hospital, she said: "I will ask them to urgently implement a programme that provides immediate access to the meds Billy so urgently needs and now more so than ever the many other children affected by this historic development.
"I will also ask them to implement a review of how the Government, our Government, our UK Government, can make cannabis-based medication available to all patients who urgently require it in our country."
She said the Government was panicked into action by her son's admission to hospital, having previously suggested she should make the application to have his medication released herself.
"The fact that Billy has been discharged is testimony to the effectiveness of the treatment and underlines how vital it is that every child and every single family affected in our country should have immediate access to the very same medication," said Ms Caldwell.
Shadow British home secretary Diane Abbott said Labour supports the legal prescription of cannabis oil for medical purposes, saying: "Children have been put at risk and experienced extraordinary suffering because this Government drags its heels and refuses to grant cannabis oil licences."
However Theresa May said that the government would look only be looking into the operation of the current system of licences for use in individual cases, rather than changing the law more widely.
"Do we need to look at these cases and consider what we've got in place? Yes," said the prime minister.
"But what needs to drive us in all these cases has to be what clinicians are saying about these issues.
"There's a very good reason why we've got a set of rules around cannabis and other drugs, because of the impact that they have on people's lives, and we must never forget that."
The oil, which is said to relieve epilepsy seizures contains a substance called Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is illegal in the UK but available elsewhere.
Labour MP Andy McDonald, whose son Rory died as a result of epilepsy, wrote to Mr Javid calling for a blanket exemption on the use of cannabis oil to alleviate the illness, along with measures to ensure supplies of the substance.
Mr McDonald wrote: "I am firmly of the view that when paediatricians and neurologists are struggling with intractable epilepsy cases, if in their considered medical view cannabis oil would be efficacious, then they should be permitted to administer it, safe in the knowledge that it is lawful to do so."
The Department of Health meanwhile said last night that it would be "liaising with the Home Office on the out-workings of this new process" following yesterday's announcement.
The spokeswoman added that Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride "is consulting with colleagues" in Britain on the "best way forward."
