Further to our recent article The Good, the bad and the quacks: false hope in the “treatment” of CRPS and Chronic Pain, the government have announced that homeopathic remedies will no longer be available on NHS prescriptions.
Simon Stevens, NHS England’s chief executive, said homeopathy is “at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds.”
Experts seem to agree. According to Professor Edzard Ernst, a complementary medicine specialist at the University of Exeter, “homeopathy is based on implausible assumptions and the most reliable evidence fails to show that it works beyond a placebo effect. It can cause severe harm when used as an alternative to effective treatments. Therefore, it is high time that the NHS stops funding it and instead employs our scarce resources on treatments that are backed by sound science.”
However, it is not just homeopathic remedies that are affected by the governments announcement. Seventeen other items will no longer be available on prescription for a range of reasons. These include herbal remedies, Omega-3 fatty acid compounds and rubefacients (rubs and ointments used to relieve muscle pain).
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