29 January 2016

Yesterday, Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) made the decision to stop the prescribing of gluten-free foods with immediate effect.

This decision was made despite Coeliac UK making a strong case for keeping gluten-free prescriptions over the last few months. The CCG held a public consultation which the Charity and many local people with coeliac disease responded to and on 6 January Coeliac UK’s Head of Campaigns Lisa Bainbridge attended a meeting of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The briefing document we submitted to the committee is available on our website.

We will be contacting Members living in the area directly to inform them of this policy change and will continue to make strong representations to the CCG. The CCG has stated that they will only fund gluten-free foods in ‘clinically exceptional cases’ and we will be asking for more details as to how they will identify this group of people. We will also be asking the CCG how the impact of the change on the long term health of people with coeliac disease will be monitored.

As ever, we'll keep you updated.