Complementary Medicine to be Regulated

A while ago the Prince of Wales Foundation received a commisson from the Department of Health to establish a new regulationary body in order to regulate the spiraling numbers of complementary medicine practitioners. It is called the Natural HealthCare Council and will start regulating in April.

A spokesperson from the Department of Health said "Currently, there is no statutory regulatory system in the UK governing the practice of other complementary therapies such as homoeopathy," therefore "The Department of Health have commissioned the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health (FiH) to develop voluntary self-regulation amongst a range of currently unregulated professions."

Only practitioners with a professional qualification that is recognised will be registered. Ian Cambray Smith from the Natural HealthCare Council  said that in order to gain "public confidence", in complimentary medicine practitioners, a comprehensive regulatory body was needed.

Ian Smith also added that "One of the problems, from the point of view of the public, is there are many different types of professional body, there are many different sets of initials that practitioners have after their names and nobody's quite sure what they all mean. By bringing things together in this way, it can give the public confidence."

Even though membership is voluntary, any members found to be incompetent will be struck off. The new Council has found approval from a number of national patient and consumer organisations.