Against alternative homeopathy: Don't waste funds on something unscientific

The recent debate within the British Medical Association on whether or not homeopathy should be funded by the NHS follows on from the publication of a House of Commons Science and technology Select Committee report earlier this year.

That report found there was no evidence to support the efficacy of homeopathy beyond the placebo.

Following debate at the BMA's annual conference in Brighton this summer, doctors' representatives voted to adopt a policy that states that the Association believes there should be no further NHS funding for homeopathy.

The basis for this policy is that homeopathic remedies do not have a scientific evidence base to support their use.

And the BMA believes that limited and scarce NHS resources should only be used to support medicines and treatment that have been shown to be effective.

We understand that many patients find value in homeopathic treatments - as they might from a placebo.

Modern medicine requires that all treatments have a strong evidential base, particularly when they are funded on the NHS. While the BMA supports the Scottish Government's policy 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 evidence base and that may not work.

• Gail Grant, senior public affairs officer for the British Medical Association in Scotland.