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“We will give people a stronger voice”—
so that they can see a service improvement. The 2004 White Paper stated the intention to give the public more informed choices as regards their health. The Government are certainly failing to do that as far as the homeopathic hospitals are concerned.
Another issue is the introduction of evidence-based practice, which tries to specify the way in which professionals or other decision makers should make decisions. Naturally, as its name suggests, it places a greater emphasis on evidence. The practice guide, however, asks for evidence-based design and development decisions to be made after reviewing information from repeated rigorous data gathering. That militates against complementary and alternative medicine, where there may not be a huge number of rigorous or repeated databases to work from. There are not a vast number of studies and that has been used against complementary medicine as an excuse. The methodology of assessing CAM might also be unfamiliar to primary care trusts. It might also be difficult to record accurately exactly how homeopathy, for example, treats. It is always different for individual patients, and that can be difficult to record. Sometimes, the treatments require a combination of remedies.
My next point is that homeopathy does not fit normal—that is, orthodox—methods of assessment. For example, the scale of prescribing is in reverse so
that the weaker the dose, the more powerful or effective it is. That subject has always been hotly disputed by many doctors, but homeopathic treatments have been operating on the reverse scale of prescribing for 200 years. Some of the most powerful—the constitutional remedies—are so diluted that they can hardly be detected. There are similar problems with acupuncture and its acceptance, as some doctors and commissioners do not necessarily believe in meridians. The same issue occurs with herbs that are unknown in this country.
Another simpler explanation of why complementary services, and the homeopathic commission in particular, have been cut recently is that they are the easiest therapy to cut. Just as advertising gets cut when times get hard in business, when the primary care trusts try to balance their budgets under the new devolved arrangements they often go for homeopathy and other complementary therapies as the soft target.
The most important point that I want to make to the Minister is that I believe that we need proper guidelines on commissioning for primary care trusts. I have said as much several times at Health questions. At present there are no proper guidelines, with the result that PCTs have little direction at a time when many are under financial pressure. Indeed, they often cite that financial pressure as one of the main reasons for not commissioning homeopathy.
Also, PCTs claim that there is not enough evidence to support the use of homeopathy. However, the Royal London Homeopathic hospital has conducted more than 130 randomised and controlled trials of homeopathic treatments that show very effective results, so surely it is in the Department’s interests to make sure that those results are publicised to PCTs.
The Smallwood report took a look at the cost-effectiveness of complementary medicine. Smallwood argued strongly that some complementary therapies were more effective and cost-effective than traditional treatments. He also wanted the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to assess their cost-effectiveness, but that has never been done. I hope that the Minister will be able to help with that. I intend to write to the Public Accounts Committee to see whether it will undertake an assessment, and I have had discussions to that effect with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who is that Committee’s Chairman.
Another problem that homeopathic hospitals have had to face is ill-informed and hostile media coverage, as well as a dirty tricks campaign. The Minister may recall that in May 2007 some doctors issued a spurious document—printed on official paper, with the NHS logo—claiming that homeopathic services should be decommissioned. The Government have never written to PCTs to refute that document.
I want to allow the Minister time to reply, because the fate of the Royal London Homeopathic hospital is of great concern internationally. I shall illustrate that, and the importance of the treatment, by looking at the results that have been achieved in Africa by homeopaths who have been trained at the hospitals that I have mentioned. Those results are especially instructive, as the homeopaths involved are treating patients with AIDS, HIV or other serious diseases such as malaria, in countries where the problems are very great.
For example, at Kendu bay in Kenya’s Nyanza province, the Abha Light foundation is an organisation that partners mothers and orphans in the rural community who are suffering from AIDS, and it has had great success in returning those people to an active life. There has also been considerable success in the use of the local herb product called neem as a homeopathic medicine. It has produced what has been described as
“a convincing reduction in malaria attacks”
I shall close with a note about what is happening in Swaziland in southern Africa. I know a homeopath who has worked there well, and I asked her for a description of what was happening in the clinics there. Her letter to me states:
“Seven years ago I introduced Homeopathy to Swaziland, providing a community of 10,000 people with the only health care available to them. In addition I travelled around with a mobile clinic reaching other very remote areas. On an average day I could see up to 50 patients...Five years ago I built a homeopathic clinic...it was so successful that the people wanted to ensure my tenure which ensured their continued treatment on a daily basis.”
The letter goes on to say that other homeopaths were brought in to help, and that the clinic treated patients who came from as far as 300 miles away.
“Aside from the predominant treatment for HIV, TB and malaria, treatment is being given for many other common ailments such as urinary infections, diarrhoea, skin eruptions, diabetes, epilepsy, eye infections, intestinal parasites, treatment from pregnancy to childbirth, to more serious but locally common ailments like cancer, gangrene, toxaemia...and general injuries...In other words the list is endless.”
The letter states that the homeopathic treatments have achieved success rates of close to 100 per cent.
“As a result many lives have been saved, and pain and misery alleviated, in a community which can simply not afford orthodox treatment even if it were available.”
That is a very important issue for developing countries. Homeopathy is so inexpensive that it is available to everyone. When homeopathic services are introduced, they tend to increase in size very quickly. My acquaintance’s letter goes on to say:
“The low cost of the remedies and the relatively short dosage period, together with the positive results of the treatment are responsible for the expansion and ever increasing demand in a Country that is unable to give the majority of the population even the most basic of health care. Therefore, Homeopathy is excellent value and has saved countless lives as well as alleviating the suffering of the countless unemployed, elderly and orphaned in Swaziland.
We will of course continue with our work. At the end of a day, when we simply cannot see any more patients, the remaining untreated patients usually start fighting among each other as to who will be the last to be seen. A true vote of confidence!”
I hope that the Minister can reassure me on guidelines for primary care trusts so that we have more effective commissioning. I hope that he will refute those statements made in the name of his Department and that he will commission NICE to look at the cost-effectiveness of homeopathy in line with the request of the Smallwood report. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
2 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Ivan Lewis):
I congratulate the hon.
Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on securing this Adjournment debate and on his passionate advocacy of the case for complementary therapies over many years in this House. Whatever people’s opinions and differences of view and perception, it is impressive when an hon. Member feels so passionately about an individual cause. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman feels that homeopathy makes a massive difference to the quality of people’s lives both in his constituency and up and down the country. I pay genuine tribute to him for the work that he does in making the case.
I am also aware that there is a growing interest among patients in complementary therapies generally—for instance, as an adjunct to conventional medicine in palliative care, although I accept that it goes beyond that. Choice is absolutely fundamental to the delivery of a truly patient-centred national health service, and it gives providers the incentive to tailor services to the needs and preferences of patients. In turn, this leads to better outcomes and, over time we hope, a reduction in health inequalities. Primary care trusts are encouraged to provide access to complementary therapies where there is evidence to support the virtues of their use.
Of course, doctors are accountable for any treatment that they give their patients, and have to satisfy themselves of the safety and clinical and cost-effectiveness of the treatment, as well as the availability of suitably qualified practitioners. They have a range of options for treating different conditions, and they must advise on which treatment or combination of treatments will be most suitable for individual patients. Many GPs now give access to some form of complementary or alternative medicine, but if a doctor decides not to recommend a complementary therapy, it is likely that he or she will have a good reason.
We genuinely want people to have free choice about their health care, but we also want to make sure that the choice that they make is an informed one and gives assurance that treatments meet key standards of safety and quality. To achieve this, the Department and the NHS have been ensuring that as much quality information as possible is available and accessible to those who need it.
For example, the Department of Health commissioned the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health to produce a patient guide on popular forms of CAM, which was published in 2005. It is encouraging to know that several thousand copies have been downloaded from the website and multiple copies have been ordered by intermediary organisations such as hospices.
NHS Direct Online and the national electronic library for health are also authoritative sources of advice on all health topics. NHS Direct already includes some material on complementary and alternative therapies and in future the national electronic library for health will also have a separate section dedicated to research on such therapies. In June last year NHS Choices was launched—a new online health information service, which also includes information on homeopathy.
Of course I hear the dissent from those who oppose the NHS commissioning complementary medicine.
Most, if not all, of that opposition is focused on treatments for which, in some people’s view, there is a lack of evidence of effectiveness. We know that there are strong views, which are sometimes articulated in the House. That is why the Government are investing in developing the evidence base for complementary therapies. We are supporting the research capacity for CAM through the £3.4 million CAM personal award scheme. The scheme was launched following publication of a House of Lords Select Committee report on CAM about eight years ago. As a result of two calls, we have successfully created a cohort of 18 CAM researchers at doctoral and post-doctoral level; as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, they are working on a broad range of research issues.
The National Co-ordinating Centre for Research Capacity Development is responsible for the personal award scheme. It also funds the CAM evidence online database, which is the result of collaboration between the Research Council for Complementary Medicine and the University of Westminster’s school of integrated health. It involves a detailed review and critical appraisal of the published research on specific complementary therapies, focusing on their use for NHS priority issues, such as cancer, mental ill health, heart disease, stroke, and chronic conditions.
We are actively addressing the important issue of appropriate regulation of the treatments and their practitioners. At present only two CAM professions are subject to statutory regulation in our country: chiropractic and osteopathy. Our first priority is to decide whether to put in place statutory regulation for herbal medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, which carry significant risk because they involve skin piercing and/or the ingestion of potentially harmful substances. Proposals for regulation of herbal medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture were made in a report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2000. The Department of Health consulted on proposals in March 2004 and published an analysis of the results in February 2005. As a result, a steering group was established in June 2006 to recommend whether and how those professions should be statutorily regulated. The group, chaired by Professor Mike Pittilo of Robert Gordon university, has completed its work, as the hon. Gentleman will know. Its report will be submitted to Ministers shortly, and a decision will then be taken about whether legislation should be brought before the House, and if so, how soon.
We expect unregulated CAM professions to develop their own unified systems of voluntary self-regulation, and to support that process we have commissioned and funded the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health to develop voluntary self-regulation among a range of professions, including homoeopathy. The result of the work is a voluntary regulator called the complementary and natural healthcare council, which, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, will be up and running from April.
In 2005, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency undertook a public consultation on proposals that would enable companies to market their products with indications. As the hon. Gentleman will know, indications are descriptions of diseases or
conditions for which the product is intended to be used, but we are talking about minor, self-limiting conditions only—the types of conditions that people normally self-treat with over-the-counter products. Following widespread support for the proposals, the scheme was introduced in the United Kingdom in September 2006. Companies marketing homoeopathic medicinal products have the option of obtaining a full marketing authorisation for each product, provided they satisfy the requirements for demonstrating safety and efficacy set out in directive 2001/83/EC. However, at present no homoeopathic products are licensed with a marketing authorisation because of the difficulty of demonstrating efficacy under the rigorous conditions of controlled clinical trials.
The hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues to do with the future of specific services, and he referred to several hospitals. There is a constant tension in debate inside and outside the House about the balance between national command and control and devolution to local decision makers—the local people and organisations to whom we give the responsibility of making the best decisions for local communities.
The fascinating thing, as I have said in previous debates in the House, is that on the whole, politicians of all parties are united around the notion of maximum devolution and localism, until they find a decision that is made in their locality that they do not like very much. Then, the same politicians advocate national intervention and command and control from Westminster and Whitehall. That perpetual tension is evident in the House.
In this case we must maintain the principle that, based on patient choice, demand and a needs assessment of their local population, local commissioners are best placed to make commissioning decisions on behalf of their local populations. It is extremely important that we retain the integrity and credibility of that process if we are to move towards a world-class commissioning system in health care.
David Tredinnick:
The debate is specifically about the problems of homeopathic hospitals. I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction, reviewing the other major issues. A fundamental problem is the lack of guidance about what is possible. Notwithstanding what he says about decisions being devolved, it is right that there should be some direction from the Department.
When such direction palpably misrepresents the Department, something should be done about it. I hope the Minister will say that he will at least consider some form of general guidelines for commissioning of homeopathic hospital services.
Mr. Lewis: In my speech thus far, I have articulated clearly the Government and NHS position on complementary therapies, so I hope that any documents that have been circulated and that give a false or misleading perception will be corrected by the record. The hon. Gentleman may pray those comments in aid, if he so wishes. Beyond that, primary care trusts in every community and every part of the country have a clear set of priorities that the Government lay down for the outcomes that they are expected to achieve with regard to health and well-being in their local communities. A range of other choices are left to primary care trusts to decide in the best interests of their local communities.
The hon. Gentleman should be a little more frank in his contribution. Under any Government there are finite resources. There is no doubt that under the present Government an unprecedented level of resources have been invested in the national health service in the past eight or nine years. Beyond the clearly defined and understood priorities, any system will require commissioners to make difficult choices. Based on the needs of their local population, based on what patients and carers tell them about what matters most, and based on evidence and outcomes, commissioners will be required to make those choices. Beyond the clear national priorities and the NHS operating framework that we issue to chief executives of primary care trusts, it is not for Ministers sitting in offices in Westminster and Whitehall to tell PCTs how they ought to make those daily difficult decisions.
David Tredinnick: There is a misunderstanding of the capabilities. A general descriptive note would be helpful.
The motion having been made after Ten o’clock on Tuesday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Madam Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at fourteen minutes past Two o’clock.
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