Phoenix Homeopathy

The onslaught against homeopathy in some circles continues, with the news that health bosses at West Kent primary care trust (PCT) have recommended that NHS funding for their patients treated at the Tunbridge Wells homeopathic hospital be withdrawn. The hospital, one of five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK, currently treats around 1,000 patients a year, at a cost to the PCT of £160,000.

Spending £160 of NHS money per patient per year might sound a lot, but in healthcare spending terms, my view is that it’s likely to be good value, especially given the results patients reported from the treatment at a sister NHS homeopathic hospital. In 2005, the BBC reported that a study at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital showed that over 70% of patients with chronic diseases reported positive changes after treatment.

More than 6,500 patients (with complaints as diverse as eczema, menopause and arthritis) took part in the six-year study. The biggest improvements were reported in children - in 89% of the cases of under 16s with asthma improvement was reported. Of the group 75% felt ‘better’ or ‘much better’, as did 68% of eczema patients under 16. This study has been criticised by sceptics of homeopathy, who argued that there was no control group, and that the results depended on patients themselves reporting how they felt after treatment.

Bear in mind, too, that (from my experience of private practice) most of the patients reporting improvements in the Bristol study will be people who have already exhausted conventional treatment options, and who have turned to homeopathy because they haven’t found conventional treatments helpful, or because they’ve found the side-effects unacceptable.

As I highlighted in my blog for Brighton’s Argus newspaper, a 2006 report by the Board of Science of the British Medical Association estimated that 250,000 people a year in the UK are admitted to hospital suffering harmful effects after taking medical drugs, at a cost to the NHS of about £466,000,000 (yes, that’s £466million) per year. Contrast this with the £160,000 cost of providing West Kent with homeopathic treatment options, take into account the excellent results reported by homeopathic patients in Bristol, and it’s easy to wonder why it’s homeopathy in the dock rather than medical drugs.

The problem for the West Kent PCT is that homeopathy doesn’t fit the accepted medical paradigm. But, as so many patients clearly feel that homeopathy helps their symptoms, it seems crazy to try to argue that the improvements they report are wrong.

As well as posting regular blogs here, I post a weekly blog for Brighton’s Argus newspaper. Why not take a look?