A national registry capturing real-world clinical and patient-reported outcomes for medical cannabis across the UK.
Evaluating safety, effectiveness, and patterns of use in clinical practice.
A national real-world evidence platform
It was established in 2019 by Curaleaf Clinic physicians, following calls from NHS England and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to develop a national registry to support evidence generation in this area.
By capturing real-world data over time, the registry helps evaluate how these treatments are used in practice, including their safety, effectiveness, and impact across a range of conditions.
Developed in line with UK research and data governance standards, it provides a trusted source of evidence in a rapidly evolving area of medicine.
Addressing the evidence gap in UK medical cannabis
Following changes to UK law in 2018, specialist doctors have been able to prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products in certain circumstances. Interest in these treatments continues to grow, particularly among patients with chronic conditions where symptoms are not adequately managed by existing therapies.
However, high-quality clinical evidence remains limited.
This reflects the challenges of conducting large-scale randomised controlled trials in this area, including regulatory complexity, variation between products, and the wide range of conditions being treated.
As a result, real-world evidence plays an important role in building understanding of how these treatments perform in clinical practice, alongside traditional clinical trials.
How the UK Medical Cannabis Registry works
Data collection
Standardised clinical and patient-reported outcomes are collected at defined intervals as part of routine care.
Data governance
All data is pseudonymised and managed in accordance with UK data protection and research governance standards.
Analysis
The dataset supports observational research, safety monitoring, and longitudinal outcomes analysis.
Output
Findings are disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and contribute to the wider clinical evidence base used to inform clinical practice, safety monitoring, and ongoing research in medical cannabis.
A growing national medical cannabis dataset
The registry represents one of the most comprehensive real-world datasets on medical cannabis in Europe.
It captures structured data across multiple therapeutic indications, including chronic pain, psychiatric conditions, neurological disorders, and sleep disturbances, as well as patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), adverse events and safety data, and prescribing patterns and dosing information.
The dataset reflects a broad patient population across the UK, enabling analysis across diverse conditions and treatment pathways.
As the dataset continues to expand, it enables increasingly robust observational analyses and long-term outcome tracking.
- 55k+ patients contributing data and tracking health outcomes
- 40+ publications and growing
- 7 years active
Peer-reviewed research
Curaleaf Clinic is determined to uphold the highest standards in all research activities and publishes findings from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry in peer-reviewed journals.
For more research from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry and wider industry please click here
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Governance and data integrity
The Registry operates within a robust governance framework to ensure data quality, security, and ethical oversight. It supports ethically approved research and complies with UK standards for the use of health data.
Key principles include pseudonymised patient data, secure data storage and handling, and transparent methodologies to support reproducible research.
This ensures the registry can support credible, high-quality scientific outputs.
Collaborate or access the UK Medical Cannabis Registry data
The UK Medical Cannabis Registry supports collaboration across the clinical and research community and welcomes healthcare professionals from across the UK to contribute.
Patients prescribed medical cannabis can participate in the registry regardless of where they receive their treatment. Enrolment can be facilitated by their clinician, or patients can register themselves. Participation also enables patients to track their health outcomes over time as part of routine data collection.
Researchers can request access to pseudonymised datasets and propose collaborative research projects.
Frequently asked questions
What data is collected in the registry?
The registry collects pseudonymised clinical data, including patient-reported outcomes, safety data, prescribing information, and how patients respond to treatment over time.
How can researchers access the dataset?
Researchers can request access to pseudonymised data for ethically approved studies and collaborative projects.
How is patient data protected?
All patient data is pseudonymised, meaning identifying details are replaced with codes so individuals cannot be directly identified. It is stored securely and handled in line with UK data protection laws and strict research standards.
What types of research does the registry support?
The dataset supports observational studies, longitudinal analyses, and real-world evidence generation across multiple therapeutic areas.