NHS criticised for spending £1.3m on homeopathic hospital in Glasgow
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Version 0 of 1. The NHS has been criticised for spending £1.28 million on a hospital that provides homeopathic care, but reportedly only has 355 patients. The Glasgow Centre of Integrative Care, formerly known as the Homeopathic Hospital, revealed that its annual budget is £1.28 million, funded by all NHS boards that refer patients to the Centre. A senior figure at the British Medical Association in Scotland has said there should be “no further funding” for the practice of homeopathy, which it claims has “no scientific evidence base”. Dr Charles Saunders, the deputy chair of BMA Scotland, said: “The BMA believes there should be no further NHS funding for homeopathy. While the BMA supports the police to allow NHS Boards to make their own decisions about how to spend their resources, we are concerned that scarce funding will be spent on ‘treatment’ that has no scientific evidence base to support its use. We believe that limited and scarce NHS resources should only be used to support medicines and treatments that have been shown to be effective.” But the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the hospital was renamed as it “offers a more complex and multidisciplinary approach to care, and the new model has created the clarity required for all parties who have an interest in the historical provision of ‘homeopathic’ care and thereby maintains a sustainable service for the future”. |