The UK Reiki Federation
Parliamentary Group for Alternative and Complementary Medicine
PGACM Newsletter 'Health Focus - Issue 1 December 1999'
(The PGACM is an All-Party Parliamentary Group whose purpose is to stimulate debate and inform policy over the whole field of alternative and complementary medicine, and thereby to help to steer legislation in the right direction). "The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology has set up a Sub-Committee to prepare a report on complementary and alternative medicine. The Committee is to look at questions in six areas: evidence, information, research, training, regulation and risk, and NHS provision."
On 'Evidence' and 'Research', the PGACM comments as follows:
Evidence
Patients satisfaction and other measures of improved quality of life should be an important determinant of what is effective and available, as patients have their own perception about what is good (enough) evidence.
Orthodox methods have their place among a hierarchy of evidence and methodology. Randomised controlled trials can answer some questions in CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine), but in other cases they fail to measure what patients and therapists find important so different approaches must be sought.
Research
Research funding for CAM should be increased, whether by new money or a re-ordering of funding arrangements. This is a very high priority in evidence-based culture. Government should play its part, through its various arms; medical charities should be persuaded to contribute. Therapy bodies, as well as manufacturers, should do what they can.
Efficacy and safety are both important: the primary need is to evaluate in greater depth what works and for which conditions. An addition to any risk/benefit question there is a matter of cost-effectiveness in an NHS context.
We believe that patients should be well represented on bodies that set the research agenda to produce a better balance in all these areas.
See also:
Activities: Voluntary Self-Regulation
