The background to CAM regulation

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The history of CAM Regulation

In 1993 Prince Charles established the Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) as a charity to explore "how safe, proven complementary therapies can work in conjunction with mainstream medicine"

The following is a direct quote from the Wikipedia web site noted below

From 2005 to 2007, FIH received a grant from the Department of Health to help organise the self-regulation of complementary therapies. There had been concern that with a large proportion of the public turning to complementary approaches, there were few safeguards in place to ensure that non-statutory regulated therapists were safe, trained, and would act in an appropriate way. FIH worked to bring together the representative bodies of many complementary professions to talk and agree standards.
The result was been the formation of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) which had hoped to register 10,000 practitioners of complementary medicine by the end of 2009 but which by September 2009 had succeeded in enrolling less than a tenth of that number due to lack of interest on the part of some of their professional associations.
In 2010, following accounting irregularities noted by the auditor, it was reported that the Metropolitan Police Economic and Specialist Crime Command had begun an inquiry into alleged fraud, and two former officials at the Prince's Foundation were arrested for fraud, believed to total £300,000.
The charity's finance director, accountant George Gray, was convicted of theft totaling£253,000 and sentenced to three years in prison.
On 30 April 2010, just four days after the arrests, the FIH announced that it would close stating later that its plans to close had been brought forward by the fraud allegations.

This is Evening Standard newspaper article on the fraud issues
The wikipedia article on this issue

What the House of Lords said

In November 2000, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology reported on complementary and alternative medicine and considered the public health policy needs and NHS provision of these treatments. In one of its many areas of consideration, the report considered the needs to provide public protection by regulating practitioners. It noted that those practices that could injure patients were either already statutory regulated (chiropractic and osteopathy) or were soon to be (herbalism and acupuncture). The remaining largely placebo based therapies and those without a sound evidence base for their efficacy and robust regulatory systems (e.g. Reiki, massage therapy, aroma therapy, yoga and homeopathy), suffered from having a large number of fragmented registration bodies with considerable diversity of standards. The House of Lords found this unacceptable and said that "in the best interests of their patients such therapies must each strive to unite under a single voluntary regulatory body".

IAAPT was the first voluntary regulator and has the largest unified register of complementary therapists covering over 127 disciplines.

Who are the regulators in this area?

The Health Professions Council (HPC) is a statutory regulator of 210,000 health professionals from 15 professions in the United Kingdom. It was set up in 2003 under the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002. HPC has decided to include only a few disciplines that come under complementary health. The benefits of HPC are that it is regulated by the Council for Regulatory Excellence. Funding comes from registration fees.
Read more about them here ..

International Academy of Alternative Psychology and Therapy (IAAPT) was the first voluntary regulator of Complementary and Alternative medicine (CAM) and began the very first unified register of therapists called the Complementary Health Register (CHR) in 2006. IAAPT was granted Community Interest Companies (CIC) status by the CIC Regulator in 2008. IAAPT covers over 127 CAM disciplines and has the largest definitive register of therapists in the UK. IAAPT is autonomous of the Department of Health and is privately funded. IAAPT registrations are free. IAAPT, because it is regulated by the Regulator of CIC, ensures transparency and benefit to the community it serves.
Our main web site here ..

The General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapies (GRCCT) is a voluntary regulator and is a Federal Regulator for Complementary Therapies. GRCCT started in 2008 and funded by charging therapists to register on its own register. We are not sure how many disciplines GRCCT welcomes or its definitions for them. GRCCT, as far as we are aware, is not regulated by anyone.

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) started in 2009 (See above the history leading up to that date) and is a voluntary regulator which provides a voluntary register of alternative medicine therapists in the UK. The CNHC was initially funded by the Department of Health and its origins are with FIH (Foundation of Integrated Health) which has now closed. Funding was stopped by the Department of Health in 2011 and the CNHC is now reliant on charging therapists fees to register. CNHC does not cover the whole of the CAM professions and voluntarily regulates only a few. The CNHC is not regulated by anyone.
Read more about them here ..



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