HRH Prince of Wales speaks up for patients

Patients are being put at risk by attacks on integrated health,  the collaboration between complementary and conventional medicine, HRH The Prince of Wales has warned.

Many people are consulting both complementary therapists and healthcare professionals, integrating care for themselves. Yet half of them fail to tell their doctors and nurses, often for fear of disapproval. 

Speaking at the first annual conference of The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health this week, HRH The Prince of Wales said patients’ choices should be supported.

‘Are those who have criticised integration, speaking for patients or for somebody else?’ he asked. ‘For example, if an integrated approach is so dangerous, why is it that I have never heard of any patient groups campaigning against integration?

‘Why have we not heard more opposition from doctors, nurses and other clinicians at the frontline, who deal with the daily suffering of those same patients?’

Bringing together the best of conventional and complementary medicine would help the NHS balance the books, HRH The Prince of Wales added.

‘It is only by improving the will and the ability of each of us to help ourselves and improve our health that we can ensure that the health service remains sustainable and we can then continue to afford expensive technology and clinical expertise, when they are required.’

Medical research is increasingly showing the benefits of integrated healthcare, he added, citing draft guidance from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence that is set to recommend osteopathy and acupuncture for low back pain.

‘I am assured by those who are expert, those who are highly qualified and, most importantly, who do know what is going on in GP surgeries up and down the country, that a mainstream research and evidence-based integrated approach to alleviating unnecessary suffering – quite apart from reducing the demand on consultancy time and the NHS’s bill for drugs – is rapidly becoming more accepted because it is both safe and effective.’

The Foundation for Integrated Health promotes an holistic approach, putting the patient at the centre of healthcare, HRH The Prince of Wales explained, rather than treating them as simply ‘a collection of symptoms, diseases and body parts in need of running repairs’.

While traditional medical science has made massive strides in the treatment of the big killers such as heart disease and cancer, we must: ‘see patients as people in every sense of the word – in other words, mind, body and soul – not as mechanistic “entities”, which always behave in rational and statistically predictable ways.

‘An integrated approach takes account of every patient’s hopes, beliefs, culture and history.’

The Foundation’s mission is to ‘help and enable individuals and communities to become more effective in withstanding disease and improving health’, HRH The Prince of Wales said. ‘We should not regard health in isolation. It is about the food we eat, the exercise we take and the lifestyle we choose’ as well as the environment in which we live.