Can Alternative Medicine Really Be Regulated?

April 2008 saw the launch of the Complementary and Natural
Healthcare Council (CNHC) which aims to increase regulation
within the field of complementary and alternative medicine. 

Now that the CNHC is accepting membership on their register,
can they manage to succeed in regulating what has always
been a very diverse and elusive form of healthcare in the
UK?

The CNHC aims to protect members of the public by helping
them to identify capable and qualified therapists.  As well
as having minimum criteria for entry they can also remove
registered therapists who breach professional standards. 

Although professional bodies do exist for the majority of
complementary therapies in the UK, the degree of regulation
and strictness of their criteria of entry do vary
considerably.  Whilst the majority of professional bodies
will exist to further the practice of their therapy, and to
promote good practice, they do not always exist primarily to
protect the public from bad practice.   Currently there is nothing to stop therapists from
practicing without any form of professional membership. 
Therapists who are not properly trained and supervised are
likely to be fairly ineffective which leads to the therapy
receiving a bad name.   For this reason you would assume that the creation of such a
body would also be well received by people working in
complementary therapy, but this has not always been the
case.  Whilst a number of professional bodies have been
eager to collaborate with the CNHC, there are also a number
that are showing greater reluctance.   In order to achieve its goals the CNHC needs to ensure that
sufficient therapies fall under its jurisdiction.  Without
general consensus of support from within the field they are
in danger of fragmenting regulation and creating a group of
‘trusted’ practitioners and a therapy ‘black market’.   Some professional organisations are not yet convinced about
the benefits that their members will achieve through
registration with the CNHC.  It appears that the body still
has some work to do to convince people that they will be
able to deliver what they are aiming for.   There are also some other concerns that have been expressed
with the attempt to create a central regulatory body within
the field of complementary and alternative medicine.  One
such concern relates to the diverse range of therapies that
exist, and the range of training available within an
individual therapy modality.   The CNHC will demand minimum criteria for entry in terms of
the qualifications that their members have achieved. 
Therapists with qualifications that were awarded many years
ago, or those who trained in smaller institutions (or
overseas institutions), may not meet the minimum criteria. 
This does not necessarily mean they are not capable
therapists, but it does mean they would be denied entry to
the register.   This leads to the question as to whether or not
complementary and alternative medicine can, or should,
really be regulated in the same way as modern Western
medicine.  The current situation, where regulation is
fragmented and varies greatly in its degree of severity,
does not help consumer confidence and ultimately harms this
field of healthcare.

Time will tell whether or not the CNHC is a feasible
solution, and this will ultimately depend on the support of
both the public and the professional bodies.  Watch this
space!