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One year from our first letter to NHS Trusts, we sent another. Listen to the interview by John Humphrys on the Radio 4 Today Programme, with Raymond Tallis and Peter Fisher. :And hear Fisher suggest that he works for UCL (not true). You can also download a summary of the current evidence in the form of an example commissioning document which accompanied our letter.

May 23, 2007. A year ago, our letter to NHS Trusts urged them to stop paying for “unproven and disproved treatments”. A year on, we sent a second letter. Read it here.

On May 23 2007, John Humphrys introduced coverage of this on the Radio 4 Today Programme with the words

“Doctors who think homeopathy is a waste of time and money seem to be winning the argument”

To listen to his interview with Raymond Tallis and Peter Fisher click here. In the interview, Peter Fisher not only misrepresented the evidence, as usual, but also he said

“We are integrating it [homeopathy] within NHS services in University College London which is one of the leading, you know, biomedical centres in the country.”

Hang on a moment! I’m glad that Fisher thinks that UCL is a “leading biomedical centre”, but he does not work for UCL (which is a university), but for the UCLH Trust, which is an NHS Trust. This shameless attempt to use the reputation of a quite different institution to bolster his case smacks of desperation (not to mention mendacity).

After Fisher’s emphasis on “integration”, Tallis commented

“The use of the word integrate is interesting. I mean I suppose you can regard combining medicines that don’t work with medicines that do work as a kind of integrative approach . . “;

The evidence

Our second letter to NHS Trusts said “If you have not already reviewed your own trust’s provision, you might find it useful to consider, in conjunction with your Director of Public Health, the paper that we have enclosed which, while not a full review of the scientific position, has been used by other trusts to promote evidence based commissioning.”. This letter has a summary of the evidence,

Download the evidence here

Good reports in the newspapers include

“Hard-up NHS trusts cut back on unproven homoeopathy treatment”: Mark Henderson in The Times

“Doctors renew drive to ban NHS homeopathy”: James Randerson, in the Guardian

[This post has been transferred from my old IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page]

Follow-up

Homeopaths have been harping on about our alleged misuse of the NHS logo, ever since this second letter was sent.  It is often said that the letter was sent under the NHS letterhead.  As so often, they don’t bother to check.  There was no NHS logo on the letter.  The only place the logo occurred was on the sample template fo commissioners that was sent with the letter. That template has always been available for download from this post. It is very obviously intended to be a template, with sections that are to be completed by commissioners highlighted.  There is no way it could be taken to be representing itself as a letter from the NHS.  This is how it starts.