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Should the NHS Fund Complementary and Alternative Medicine? A Critical Examination

This article critically evaluates whether the NHS should allocate funds to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). It highlights the issues surrounding CAM, such as the high costs (£2.7 billion per year), lack of safety standards, and prevalence among wealthy individuals. It raises concerns about CAM's effectiveness, with only 25% reporting real relief and many responses reflecting unscientific beliefs. The article argues that the NHS should prioritize proven medical practices and undergo necessary reforms to address waiting times and service delivery, instead of investing in fashionable trends.

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Should the NHS Fund Complementary and Alternative Medicine? A Critical Examination

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  1. Should CAM be funded by the NHS? or Do you really want your tax money to be used for fashionable quackery? Abracadabra..... ...Yin Yang SIM SALA...

  2. Reasons for using CAM Moreover: Mostly rich people use CAM.

  3. Fashion or real medical relief? • Only 25% experienced real relief of injury or condition. • Only 18% of the replies were related to NHS (not accessible) or GPs (referral) • Most (96%) answers related to unscientific believes and general fashion trends. The NHS cannot fund fashion in public health care!

  4. Problems of funding CAM Lack of safety standards time consuming 1:6 builds dependencies, psychological addictions not well-researched Expensive: £2,700,000,000 per year Lack of training no single definition of CAM Lack of standardisation - quacks Lack of rational data for public Alan Milburn, Health Secretary

  5. NHS Priorities in the 2000 Reform Plan • NHS is a 1940s system operating in the 21st century and needs to be reformed in terms of • standard, de-centralisation and autonomy of local health services, empowering patients, reducing waiting periods in emergency departments • The current budget will achieve by 2005: GP appointment in 48 hours, cancer screening programmes and available cancer drugs, free nursing care in nursing homes, diet improvement for children in schools (1 fruit a day), mental health teams, ONLY 3 months waiting periods for outpatients and 6 months for inpatients. (Currently 172 days for open heart surgery!!)

  6. £2,700,000,000 per year for CAM How would NHS services look like if 50,000 CAM practitioners, 5 million CAM patients, and10,000 statutory registered health professionals who practise some form of CAM would be covered by the NHS???

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