For Doctors
Our aim is to be trusted by doctors to enable us to support patients in a safe, responsive, reliable and effective way.
By Doctors for Doctors to help patients
Sapphire Medical Clinics were formed by doctors for doctors. We aim to become a trusted partner of NHS medical professionals and support patients in using medicinal cannabis where other treatments have failed.
Our internationally renowned and respected consultants will assess patients within their area of expertise and if another conventional therapy is available that will be tried first.
Rigorous Prescribing Framework
There are three mechanisms by which Patients and Doctors are reassured that the highest standard of clinical practice and prescribing are upheld. These are:
1. All clinicians are trained to the highest level by international experts with experience in medicinal cannabis prescribing.
2. All clinicians receive bespoke and disease specific clinical and prescribing guidelines developed by Sapphire Medical Clinics using large data sets.
3. Following consultation, all patients are discussed at the central multidisciplinary team meeting involving all the clinicians.
Education
Our Doctors
All of our doctors have been through an intense training program to equip them with the skills required to prescribe this very complex and variable medicine. The program includes face-to-face sessions with an expert cannabis physician, telemedicine clinics with an experienced cannabis counsellor.
GPs and Consultants
For medical professional’s wishing to learn more about medicinal cannabis, we have put together a series of online modules (with examinations) which are CPD accredited in UK.
Why we are safe
We have followed the guidance set by the GMC, MHRA, NHS England.
We have gone beyond this guidance to create our own rigorous Standard Operating Procedures, which are being ratified by the above organisations and will be published on our site in due course. This will guide the future use of medicinal cannabis by closely monitoring adverse events and change in patient outcomes.
We have recruited experienced NHS consultants who are experts in their fields and will only see patients who they would see in their practice in the NHS.
We are aligned to the most up to date research and will continually monitor any new developments.
We will collect data on all of our patients with their consent and will form the first UK registry on medicinal cannabis. This will guide the future use of cannabis, adverse reactions and change in patient outcome to establish where this drug is of most use.
Why Work For Sapphire?
We have aligned our organisation and structure as close to NHS practice as possible, which will enable the development of partnerships in the future as the evidence builds. We are safe, professional and reliable.
When working for us you will go through a structured, internationally recognised training program to ensure you are competent to prescribe medicinal cannabis. We also offer virtual support from cannabis physicians and counsellors with years of experience.
Our structure means that you can simply see patients and prescribe cannabis when appropriate. Sapphire ensures the prescription passes through our Multidisciplinary Team and is signed off by our Medical Director. Where others fall down we are able to ensure the prescription gets through the multiple levels of bureaucracy and the patient receives their treatment. There is no pressure or incentive to prescribe cannabis.
Sapphire Medical Clinics operates as a franchise model and offers clinicians a unique opportunity to build and scale their own clinic.
Partner clinicians:
- will be fully educated in medicinal cannabis prescribing and have support of expert central team
- all patients are discussed at the central multidisciplinary team in line with best practice (and in line with recommended NHS and MHRA guidelines)
- together with other local specialists own their own clinics and have the opportunity to grow their own clinic business
- be responsible for servicing patients in a defined geographical area referred from GP network as well as central booking team
- be provided with IT infrastructure, central HR, financial, marketing, education, training and administrative support
- alongside academics, regulators and other industry stakeholders will seek to increase understanding of medical cannabis by patients, doctors and regulators by contributing to the UK’s first comprehensive patient registry
