Independent patient-reported outcomes for prescribed CBPMs in the UK
CannaBias is a governed digital infrastructure for collecting longitudinal patient-reported outcomes, experience data, and safety signals from people prescribed cannabis-based medicinal products (CBPMs) in the UK. The platform is designed to complement existing clinical care, pharmacovigilance, and research activities, not to replace them.
Contact us about a pilotWhy real-world CBPM monitoring matters
CBPM prescriptions in England more than doubled between 2021/22 and 2022/23, with over 177,000 items dispensed in a single twelve-month period and continued annual growth since. The overwhelming majority of these are private prescriptions, with limited independent infrastructure for structured outcomes or safety monitoring across the patient population.
Patients prescribed CBPMs privately are largely outside existing NHS pharmacovigilance systems, meaning safety signals can take longer to surface.
There is currently no standardised, independent mechanism for capturing longitudinal patient-reported experience data across multiple UK CBPM prescribers and products.
NHS bodies, NICE, and clinical commissioners have limited access to real-world evidence on CBPM outcomes at scale, making future guidance development and access decisions harder to evidence.
Private clinics and specialist pharmacies often lack the internal resource to design, run, and interpret patient-reported outcome programmes independently.
What CannaBias provides
Patient-reported outcomes infrastructure
CannaBias captures structured patient-reported experience measures including symptom change, tolerability, side-effects, and quality-of-life indicators at regular intervals throughout a patient's CBPM prescription journey. Outcome question sets can be configured by indication (e.g. chronic pain, neurological conditions, anxiety, sleep) and over time-points relevant to the clinical question.
Batch-linked monitoring and analytics
The platform captures batch and product identifiers alongside patient experience data, enabling recurring tolerability or quality-consistency signals to be detected and investigated. Insight is delivered at cohort level rather than as individual public testimonials, making it suitable for clinical and regulatory use.
Governance and safety infrastructure
All contributions come from verified prescribed patients. Content is moderated to remove dosing advice, medical claims, and personal identifying information. Adverse events are signposted to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme. Data is handled under UK GDPR Articles 6 and 9 with explicit consent, data minimisation, and patient-controlled deletion rights.
How CannaBias works with health system partners
NHS and service-improvement partners
CannaBias can support NHS-adjacent pilots exploring structured CBPM outcome monitoring within specific pathways — including chronic pain, multiple sclerosis spasticity, neurological conditions, and palliative care. Anonymised aggregated insight can be used alongside existing service metrics to support quality improvement and commissioners’ understanding of patient experience at scale.
Research and academic partners
The platform data model is being developed with reference to NICE's real-world evidence framework and the UK Health Data Research Alliance's interoperability principles. Researchers can explore collaboration on study design, data access protocol development, and patient recruitment pipelines for CBPM-related studies.
Clinics and specialist pharmacies
CannaBias provides a standardised, cost-light mechanism for collecting, monitoring, and acting on patient-reported experience and safety signals. Adoption does not require changes to clinical systems, prescribing protocols, or data infrastructure. A pilot model is available.
Talk to us about a collaboration
If you are from the NHS, an innovation center, a academic research institution, or healthcare provider and would like to explore collaboration or piloting, please get in touch.
Contact us about a pilotCannaBias does not sell cannabis or provide medical advice. This page is intended for health system, research, and regulatory audiences.