The consultation is proposing to change secondary legislation only. The options are for gluten free products to be “blacklisted” ie GPs would be banned from prescribing them on the NHS, or to add differing ranges of products to the prescribing list, or to maintain the list.

The consultation does not propose minimum levels of access, and does not propose changes to the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Therefore, it must be assumed that Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) will continue to have the ability to make local policies in this area.

This means that where prescribing has been ended, that this is likely to continue, and that CCGs will continue to make proposals to adjust policies in this area, if they feel it necessary. The framework being proposed facilitates the continuation of local policy making by CCGs. However, if the outcome of the consultation is to allow the continuation of prescribing we will use the Department of Health response to go back to the CCGs and point out that the Government have clearly accepted that it is legitimate to prescribe gluten free products.