SNP minister defends homeopathic hospital

NHS Scotland’s only homeopathic hospital should be protected from closure, according to the Scottish Government’s Health Secretary, Alex Neil.

Based at the Gartnavel site in Glasgow’s West End and known as the “Centre for Integrative Care”, it is one of four NHS-funded homeopathic institutions in the UK, and one of only a few homeopathic hospitals in Europe to offer overnight care. It also provides other “alternative therapies” like acupuncture.

Neil said that he was “absolutely determined not only that we keep the centre for integrative care open, but that we also continue to develop its services because I believe it has a significant contribution to make to healthcare not only in Glasgow but across Scotland”.

He added: “Anyone who is worried about the centre closing, there is no prospect of us allowing that centre to close.”

Various campaign groups in Scotland have clashed over the medical value of homeopathy, which encompasses treatments that involve taking oral doses of highly diluted substances. Its proponents claim the unconventional treatments stimulate the body’s self-healing mechanism.

The Scottish Government says it “recognises” that treatments like homeopathy “may offer relief to some people living with a range of long term conditions”, but it does not fund these treatments directly. Instead, NHS Scotland health boards are enabled to “make these services available to their patient populations based on assessment of need”.

But the British Medical Association is among organisations that believe NHS funding for homeopathic treatments and institutions should be ended, saying there is “no scientific evidence base” for the treatments’ efficacy.

And a report produced by Westminster’s cross-party House of Commons Science and Technology Committee in 2010 also advised that NHS money should not go towards homeopathic treatments after concluding they have no value beyond a placebo effect.

Robert Calderwood, chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said that the board has no plans at present to close the centre, but that a critical proportion of its funding comes via referrals from other health boards.

NHS Highland and NHS Lothian are so far the only of NHS Scotland’s fourteen regional health boards which have resolved to stop referring new patients to homeopathic services, but NHS Lanarkshire is carrying out a review on whether to follow suit.

If more health boards decide to stop sending patients to the centre, NHS GGC says it could be forced to reconsider its future, as over £700,000 in its funding comes through this route – almost a third of its £2.2 million budget.