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Our President - HRH The Prince of Wales
For more than two decades HRH The Prince of Wales has advocated a fundamental reappraisal of the way we view health.
HRH The Prince of WalesWe are infinitely complex beings - mind, body and spirit - that cannot just be reduced to mechanical functioning. Healthcare should, and must, attend appropriately to all three aspects.
In 1993 he founded the Foundation in order to encourage an integrated approach to health. This means seeing the patient as a whole person (mind, body and spirit) and addressing the social and environmental influences on health, as well as exploring how safe, proven complementary therapies can work in conjunction with mainstream medicine.
The Prince believes that poor health does not exist in isolation, but is in fact a direct consequence of our lifestyles, our cultures, our communities and how we interact with our environments. He believes that 'the state of our health reflects the food we eat, the exercise we take, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the quality of our housing and sanitation. It even extends to our social circumstances – the need to belong to a community, the need for meaningful work and daily purpose.' More information about the Prince's views on integrated health and in particular the need to tackle the epidemic of chronic illness can be found in his keynote speech to the World Health Assembly given on 23rd May 2006.