An MP has urged the Home Secretary to grant a licence for cannabis oil treatment for a child who has one of the worst cases of epilepsy in the country.

Dover and Deal MP Charlie Elphicke has requested a Schedule 1 drug license on behalf of Teagan Appleby, eight, of Milner Crescent, Aylesham, who was born with the rare condition Isodicentric 15.

She is wheelchair-bound, suffers up to 300 seizures a day and recently required life-saving treatment five times in an eight-day period.

Experts have pointed to recent clinical trials advocating cannabis oil as an effective treatment.

A number of UK cases have since emerged, including of Billy Caldwell, 12, of Northern Ireland.

He was granted a Schedule 1 license through special powers used by Home Secretary Sajid Javid early this month.

Mr Elphicke's team met with Teagan’s mum Emma Appleby and he has now written to Mr Javid, urging him to intervene in her case.

Mr Elphicke, Dover and Deal MP, said: "It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to see their child in such pain.

“The Home Secretary has sensibly ordered a review of this whole issue, but in the meantime an eight-year-old girl is suffering terribly.

“Emma, the family and the NHS are trying their best for poor Teagan. Yet with known medication failing, the next step would be risky procedures on the brain itself.

“Of course the family wants to explore all other options. That’s why I have urged the Home Secretary to grant the license and I will keep working with the family to try and ensure that happens.”

Isodicentric 15 is a chromosome abnormality that for Teagan has progressed to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a form of severe epilepsy.

She takes two types of drug daily, which for most cases are only used as rescue medication to prevent death.

Ms Appleby says this medication is itself unlicensed, but prescribed by the NHS anyway due to the severity of her condition.

Professor Deb Pal, a child epilepsy expert at King's College London, recently said: "There is now good evidence from clinical trials that pharmaceutical preparations of cannabidiol are effective against two types of severe childhood epilepsy.

"These are known as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

"More recently reviews of human and animal evidence conclude that THC also may have anticonvulsant properties.”

Mr Elphicke has requested a Schedule 1 license for both the CBD and THC forms of cannabis oil.