|
|
 |
| |
Margaret Leighton holds a copy of the letter from Peter Fisher |
Fears over homeopathic hospital’s future in NHS
‘We are a soft target’, claims chief of largest complementary clinic
EUROPE’S largest homeopathic hospital could be forced to close if Primary Care Trusts continue to withdraw funding, the New Journal has learned.
The fears were raised by Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (RLHH) clinical director Peter Fisher, who wrote to patients telling them: “If too many PCTs stop funding, the hospital may be forced to close. These decisions are due to the financial crisis in the NHS and the PCTs’ belief that scientific evidence of effectiveness for homeopathy and other complementary therapies is lacking.”
The hospital, in Great Ormond Street, provides allergy and nutritional medicine, a children’s clinic, complementary cancer care, podiatry and chiropody, integrated complementary medicine, musculoskeletal medicine, rheumatology, skin services, stress and mood disorder treatment and a women’s clinic.
So far, it is believed Hammersmith and Islington PCTs have indicated a reluctance to refer patients to the RLHH and others have already withdrawn funding.
Dr Fisher said Islington PCT was planning to make use of its new “referral management centre” to divert patients from being sent to the hospital.
He said: “They think we’re a soft target. It’s true, compared with drugs backed by wealthy pharmaceutical companies there probably isn’t as much evidence to support the use of our treatments.
“Islington PCT is saying they are going to make it more difficult for new patients to be referred to us.”
The hospital sees about 15,000 patients and provides about 40,000 appointments annually, 700 of these come from Camden.
Dr Fisher said many patients come to the hospital after suffering side-effects from medical drugs or because the drugs don’t work at all.
He said: “We’ve introduced many new things to the NHS.
“We were the first to introduce acupuncture to the NHS in 1972. But many people don’t even know we exist, they don’t even know they can get this treatment on the NHS.”
He added: “We will fight hard against it. They are talking about patient choice, by next year people will have the right to go wherever they like for treatment – yet we are being pushed out.”
A spokesman for UCLH, which the RLHH is part of, said: “There’s absolutely no intention to close the Royal National Homeopathic Hospital.”
A representative of UCLH Patient and Public Involvement forum said: “We would regret the closure of anything that would deprive patients of treatment. We would deplore the closure of a hospital that has just had so much money spent doing it up.”
Margaret Leighton, who suffers from tremors, said: “I’d be shattered if it closed, I’d have to go private. I can’t afford it – I’d have to give up holidays – but I feel that strongly about it.”
Miss Leighton, a retired secretary from Bloomsbury, has been a patient at the hospital for 15 years. She added: “People come from all over the country – there’s one other in England as far as I know.”
Royal Free appointee
NICHOLAS Winterton has been appointed as non-executive director to the Royal Free Hospital board for a further term.
Mr Winterton, who is the executive director for the Medical Research Council and lives in Camden Town, will be paid £5,800 a year for his service. His work at the Hampstead hospital will include serving on the finance and strategy, ethics, fire compliance and remuneration committees.
Mr Winterton, who chairs the board of trustees of two local charities, has declared no political activity in the past five years.
On court to give up
FREE badminton coaching sessions are being offered to older Bangladeshi men to help them stop smoking.
The Third Age project has teamed up with Camden Council to offer the seven-week course at the Samuel Lithgow Centre, Stanhope Street, with free coaching and smoking support.
A badminton tournament will be held no March 14 to mark No Smoking day. |
 |
|
|
|
