Our blog gives a flavour of integrated health from the philosophic to the practical.  Dr William Bird explains how our access to nature is decreasing with each generation; Sir Michael Marmot links illness with poverty; Dr Peter Mackereth talks about complementary approaches for pain control in cancer.

Meanwhile Boo Armstrong and Peter Hain MP talk about a pilot study in Northern Ireland exploring what happens when complementary approaches are available on the NHS.

What does a really good integrated health GP practice look like?  One of the field leaders for integration is Dr Sam Everington's Bromley-by-Bow practice.  He talks about how he serves a multicultural population with a high incidence of diabetes.  Then herbalist Simon Mills describes how he tried to replicate the work in Devon.

'This house believes that complementary medicine does more harm than good'.  The recent debate at Guy's hospital pitched Simon Singh and Professor Michael Baum against Professors George Lewith and David Peters.  The debate centred around the evidence base, how to properly 'blind' complementary interventions, the dangers to patients who become alienated from mainstream approaches and the 'industrialisation' of medicine.

Want a few more stats and a bit more detail?  Read the details of selected presentations here, including Dr Hugh MacPherson assessing the evidence for complementary medicine and Dr Catherine Zollman who asks why it's so hard to make evidence-based decisions about integrated medicine in general practice.

New NICE guidelines for treating back pain recommend complementary therapies for the first time, including acupunture, chiropractic and osteopathy.  This means that doctors will be able to prescribe them for pain lasting for longer than six weeks.