£23m eczema bath oils of no benefit, study finds

Eczema bath treatments costing the NHS £23million a year have “no clinical benefit” whatsoever, a British Medical Journal report has found.

Emollient bath additives are estimated to make up as much as a third of the cost of treating the skin condition in children in the UK.

Researchers, led by Miriam Santer at the University of Southampton, carried out a trial on 482 children suffering from moderate eczema. One group used bath additives with other treatments over a 16-week period, while the other did not. The trial “found no evidence of clinical benefit from including emollient bath additives”.