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New GP network will integrate conventional and complementary medicine

London Kathryn Godfrey

More complementary medicine should be available on the NHS, Peter Hain, the secretary of state for Wales and Northern Ireland, told a conference last week.

Mr Hain was speaking at the launch of GP Associates, a group of GPs interested in bringing together conventional and complementary medicine. The group is being formed by the Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Health.

Mr Hain said that he regularly used complementary medicine and had become a "true convert" after his son’s eczema had been improved by homoeopathy.

He criticised the medical profession for its reluctance to embrace such treatments. He said, "Some in the conventional medical establishment are behaving very conservatively, as defenders of the existing paradigm have always done throughout the history of science until a new way of thinking has proven its worth."

However, he acknowledged research into the effectiveness of complementary medicine was needed to win . . . [Full text of this article]

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