NHS England authorises and pays for sodium oxybate by means of individual funding requests on the basis of exceptional circumstances. The British Department of Health pays for the medication for 80 patients who are taking legal action over problems linked to the use of the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix at a cost of £12,000 a year. As of 2016 there were many areas in the UK where NHS did not pay for it. In May 2016 they were ordered by the High Court to provide funding to treat a teenager with severe narcolepsy. The judge criticised their "thoroughly bad decision" and "absurd" policy discriminating against the girl when hundreds of other NHS patients already receive the drug.