Why are children still being denied life-changing ​medical cannabis on the NHS?

It’s time for the health secretary to personally intervene and close the huge gulf between what the government promised and what has been delivered

One source of relief for some suffering epilepsy is medicinal cannabis oil (Getty)

Optimism. You have to have it in politics. In fact, given the challenges people up and down the country have faced over these past 18 months, you might just say a little bit of optimism is what we all need right now.

In my years as an Edinburgh MP, it has been my constituents that have been the source of my optimism. Take Karen Gray’s story, for example.

Gray is the mother of a boy, Murray, who has a rare form of epilepsy that, unmedicated, causes him to suffer life-threatening seizures every single day. The one source of relief in Murray’s life comes from medicinal cannabis oil.