Why bother with homeopathy?

Sunday, 25th November 2007

I have to be careful on this one, as my wife is convinced it works, and one of her best friends is a homeopath. Ben Goldacre, a firm sceptic on the subject of alternative medicine, put the boot in with some relish in the Guardian. Glasgow GP and FT columnist Margaret McCartney has major doubts too, but asks larger questions about how the NHS gives - or fails to give - patients the time and attention they need:

The bottom line, and no homeopath
with half an eye on the evidence can ignore it, is that homeopathic remedies are no better than taking a placebo. Homeopathy does not work. We should accept this and move on. However, we must not dismiss the placebo effect as well. The placebo effect – where a chemically inactive treatment produces beneficial effects – is one of the most useful, consistent, cheap, and side-effect free medical treatments we have. The problem is rather that one of the main ways we distribute the placebo effect on the NHS – via homeopathic hospitals – is expensive and unfair as only a few can benefit from it.
...The word “placebo” is Latin for “I shall please”. Modern healthcare pretends to care and to focus on the patient. In reality, this sometimes means nothing more than meeting targets, crunching numbers and handing out the occasional customer satisfaction questionnaire...
As a GP, I may have to leave halfway through a consultation to make an emergency house call – hardly what you would call undivided attention. The homeopath, on the other hand has the luxury of putting aside an hour for the first meeting, should they so wish, and will talk about nothing except what the patient wishes to discuss...
What’s clear then is that general practice is very efficient but that efficiency comes with a cost. The cost is in the value-added parts of the consultation, which we don’t often measure. No wonder patients perceive themselves to be in a vast and unfeeling machine. The contrast with homeopaths, who tend to see their patients often, could not be greater. No wonder also, that people seek out homeopaths instead.
This does not alter my opinion. We should still close the NHS homeopathic hospitals. But we should use the saved money to do NHS caring better.