NHS wasting £25m a year on ‘useless’ acupuncture, experts warn
TAXPAYERS are funding an estimated £25million of NHS acupuncture every year despite a lack of evidence it works, experts have warned.
Doctors should stop recommending acupuncture for pain because there is ‘insufficient evidence it is clinically worthwhile’, two scientists wrote in the British Medical Journal.
Even in China – the country that invented the practice, which usually involves putting needles in the skin – it was ‘considered irrational and supersti- tious’ as far back as 1700, they said. Professor Edzard Ernst, of the University of Exeter, last night called for the NHS to stop funding the practice.
‘Health services should use their limited resources for interventions that have been proved effective,’ he said.
With Asbjorn Hrobjartsson, of the University of Southern Denmark, he wrote: ‘After decades of research and hundreds of acupuncture pain trials, we still have no clear mechanism of action, insufficient evidence for clinically worthwhile benefit, and possible harms.’
But Mike Cummings, of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, said it is a safe alternative to drugs which ‘improves health-related quality of life’ for those who respond well to it.
‘Insufficient evidence it works’