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Speech by Ben Bradshaw MP Minister of State for Health Service on the formation of the CNHC
I am delighted to have been invited here tonight to celebrate the formation of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council.
The locus for a Health Minister to attend this evening is perhaps one that is not immediately clear. After all, the great majority of the therapies which have been involved in the formation of the Council are not provided on the NHS. People generally access and pay for them privately. Although with the arrival of free choice and soon personal budgets, who knows what possibilities may arise.
Now that the Council has been set up, there will be a single body to which the public can turn for help, encompassing a wide range of professions.
However, patient safety is a matter of paramount importance to this Government and I do welcome this step to help the public access safer and better services, even if they are provided outside of the health service.
Depending on which surveys and market research you believe, somewhere between one in five and one in three people in the UK uses some form of complementary therapy or treatment. There is a huge and growing market in herbal medicines and nutritional supplements - if you walk through any shopping centre you will have notice that the number of shops selling these products have mushroomed in the last few years. All the evidence shows a massive rise in public interest in, and use of, alternative treatments.
We want patients and clinicians to make informed decisions about the use of complementary therapies.
A robust evidence base is needed in order to do this, which is why the Department of Health supports research capacity in complementary medicine through a £3.4million research programme.
The National Coordinating Centre for Research Capacity, as well as being responsible for distributing research funding also runs CAMEOL – the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Evidence Online. This is a collaboration between the Research Council for Complementary Medicine and the University of Westminster School of Integrated Health. It involves a detailed review and critical appraisal of the published research in specific complementary therapies, focusing on their use in NHS priority areas (cancer, mental health, heart disease and stroke, and chronic conditions).
A stronger evidence base will mean both patients and clinicians can make better informed choices. Both the NHS and the Department for Health are committed to ensuring that as much quality information as possible is available and readily accessible to those who need it.
While the information will help inform the public about how the therapies work, it won’t tell people who the best providers are.
This is why the formation of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council is important. At the moment, if I respond to an advert or walk into a High Street clinic and book a treatment I probably won’t know whether the person advising or treating me has an appropriate qualification, or who I should complain to if something goes wrong. They may have letters after their name, and they may be members of a professional association, but the chances are that I won’t know how reputable that organisation is.
Now that the Council has been set up, there will be a single body to which the public can turn for help, encompassing a wide range of professions. There will be significant benefits for practitioners too. Practitioners who register with the Council will be signing up to minimum standards, which will enhance public confidence in their professional credibility.
What is more, patients can be assured that if they make a complaint against a practitioner, the majority of people dealing with their concern at the Council will be lay people who do not have a vested interest in the profession. The practitioner can also be reassured that the procedures they follow will be fair and transparent, because they have been developed with the full co-operation of the professions involved and with scrutiny from external experts.
I acknowledge that some of the therapies represented here already have professional bodies with which practitioners can register, and I want to publicly thank the professional representatives who have come together and worked extremely hard in the Federal Working Group to develop this 'umbrella' approach. It is a big step forward, and will be beneficial both to you, the practitioners, and to your patients.
Thanks are due to many other people. In particular Dame Joan Higgins, who chaired the Federal Working Group that brought together the various therapies to develop the Council. I would also like to thank the independent lay people who gave up their time to work with the practitioners in developing this initiative.
The Department of Health provided £900,000 to the Prince’s Foundation to help facilitate the establishment of the Council and I would also like to thank the Foundation for the tremendous support and encouragement they gave.
Once again, congratulations on reaching this important milestone in voluntary regulation. I’m delighted to be here tonight to share it with you and hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.