Defiant GPs prescribe ‘bogus’ homeopathic remedies on NHS

DOCTORS prescribed homeopathic medicines more than 2,000 times last year despite the therapies being “blacklisted” by the NHS, The Sunday

Telegraph can reveal.

GPs made out 2,165 prescriptions for homeopathic remedies in 2019, apparently ignoring a 2017 warning from NHS England not to prescribe the treatments, which Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive described as “at best a placebo” and “a misuse of scarce NHS funds”.

Health chiefs said last year they would ask the government to “formally blacklist” homeopathy so it could not be prescribed – but this has not yet been made law.

In total, the NHS paid out around £46,000 for homeopathic prescriptions in 2019, enough to employ nearly two newly-qualified nurses. And in the first six months of 2020, doctors prescribed the treatments 554 times – costing the NHS nearly £16,000.

It comes after health officials accused homeopaths of spreading “misinformation” on Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic and selling remedies online claiming to treat the virus.

Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS medical director said: “Homeopathy has no place in the NHS and is no replacement for rigorously tried and tested medical care. We have been clear in our guidance to GPs that they should not be prescribing these bogus treatments, which are at best a placebo and a misuse of taxpayers’ money.”

Michael Marshall, of the pro-science charity Good Thinking Society, said: “It is simply astonishing to see, during a pandemic in which the NHS is under enormous pressure, that there are GPs who persist in prescribing remedies which have been comprehensively shown to be of no benefit at all”.

NHS prescription data, analysed by The Telegraph using the Oxford University-run website OpenPrescribing.net, showed spending was driven by GPs in a handful of areas. Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire clinical commissioning groups accounted for more than 35 per cent of NHS spending on homeopathic remedies in 2019 and more than half in lockdown.

Mr Marshall added: “NHS England advised GPs not to prescribe these worthless remedies, and requested that they be blacklisted. Yet years later, the government has not followed through on its responsibility. As a result we continue to see limited NHS resources squandered on sugar pills.”

Dr Charlotte Mendes Da Costa, a London GP and Faculty of Homeopathy member, said: “NHS England considers homeopathy to be a low-priority treatment. However, it should be noted that it is not illegal to prescribe homeopathic medicines.”