GLUTEN free food prescriptions will be axed after health bosses agreed the money could be better spent elsewhere.
The Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which controls the Island's health service budget and needs to cut costs by £12m next year alone, has ruled gluten free food for people with coeliac disease will no longer be provided by the NHS.
Prescriptions will be axed in April, saving the CCG £226,000 a year.
The Island's 500 to 600 coeliac sufferers who want gluten free food, such as bread, pasta and flour, will have to buy it themselves — unless there are exceptional medical circumstances.
Isle of Wight CCG chair Dr John Rivers said: "In the end the CCG executive felt that given the scale of the savings that need to be made, the CCG could not afford to continue commissioning this service and so recommended that prescriptions for gluten-free foods should stop."
Chief officer Helen Shields said: "We are making this difficult decision but feel we have little choice given our financial position.
"We know this will not be the only difficult decision that the CCG will have to make.
"We are working closely with partners and patients to make sure that we make these decisions in a clear and transparent way with a good understanding of the consequences of those decisions and mitigating actions that can be put in place."
Coeliac sufferer Helen Parkar, 46, of Porchfield, was among those to speak out about the possible cut, when a consultation was launched earlier this year.
She told the County Press in November the service was a lifeline for many Isle of Wight families. Support will be provided to help those currently in receipt of the prescriptions, and a group for coeliac sufferers has been launched with the backing of Community Action Isle of Wight.
Its first meeting will be held at the Riverside Centre, Newport, on January 17, at 5pm.