End Scottish NHS spending on homeopathy

August 2, 2017

The Humanist Society Scotland have called on the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Health, Shona Robison, to review how NHS Boards are funding Homeopathy in Scotland.

However in a reply, the Scottish Government states that they “recognise that some Complementary and Alternative Medicines, including Homeopathy, may offer relief to some people suffering from a wide variety of conditions.”

This follows action by NHS England who announced, as part of a recent consultation, that they will end the practice of funding Homeopathy. If this changes goes ahead in England, Scotland will be the only part of the UK where the NHS continues to fund the controversial alternative to regular treatments.

Announcing the recent consulted changes to policy in England the NHS England’s Chief Executive, Simon Stephens, described Homeopathy as “at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds”.

Funding for Homeopathy in the NHS in Scotland has reduced in recent years as figures gathered by the Good Thinking Society have shown. Their research however identifies six of the fourteen Scottish health boards spending £1.7m in the last year figures were available 2015/2016.

In a letter (available below) to the Scottish Government the Humanist Society Scotland call for an end to Homeopathy funding through the NHS. The Society States that “the NHS should not be funding to Homeopathy as it is not an effective or responsible spend of resources which could be better spent in other areas of healthcare.”