Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is now a process in place for doctors who are prescribing this medicine off licence. The HSE has advised me that the turnaround time for initial applications is three working days and it is five days for appeals. As of last Friday 1,500 post-shingle patients have been approved for it and the patch is being provided for them in the normal manner. Another 4,784 patients were registered by their GPs for uses other than post-shingles pain and 14% of these patients - 670 - have been approved. This means there are now more than 2,300 patients who are approved for the patch in the drug schemes, with more than one third approved for uses other than post-shingles pain.

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