Cheshire mum fundraising for two sons to get the medicinal cannabis they're being denied on the NHS
Angela Norton has been trying to get an NHS prescription for the drug since it became legal in November 2018.
Almost a year since medicinal cannabis became legal on the NHS in England, a mum from Cheshire is telling us she's still struggling to get access to the drug for her two sons.
Angela Norton's children, Cayman and Reims, both have a severe form of epilepsy which causes hundreds of seizures a day.
At the moment though, doctors are reluctant to prescribe it before further tests have been carried out to prove its long term safety.
As a result, Angela is being forced to pay thousands of pounds for a private prescription to give her sons a better quality of life: "Seeing them suffer so badly over the last year has been horrific for the whole family.
"They have spent weeks and months in hospital and have screamed in pain and in fear.
"I do agree that trials are needed, but these children are really sick and they have no other options left available to them. They spend their lives in hospital having seizures every single day and no quality of life. These children cannot wait for the trials.
Angela has started a fundraising page to cover the cost of private prescriptions but is worried about the impact when the money runs out: "The prescription for the first month was £1,100 and it will increase each month. We're desperately trying to fund raise to keep the medicine going but we're going to come to a point where the medicine could run out. It could actually make Cayman worse if he then has to stop the medication.
"Cayman has severe drug resistant epilepsy which means he has seizures every single day. In October it was up to 300 seizures a day."
Anglea is hoping that access to the drug improves quickly, and is urging those in power to step in: "I think they need to look at the evidence from around the world - and there are children using medicinal cannabis with THS and their outcomes are absolutely amazing. These children going back to school and living their childhoods to the full. Surely that's enough evidence to prescribe it."