The problems of the NHS now are intensifying, with many Primary Care Trusts saving money by stopping non-emergency referrals for the rest of the financial year. Some are allegedly also refusing to fulfil obligations to pay dentists or hospitals for work done. My dentist has joined the stampede to leave the NHS and I now have to pay £130 a year or so for my dental care

It has always been a truism that what NHS dentistry is doing now is a marker for NHS General Medical Services. None of this is new and follows on from the observations of last month.

However there is a message here for the complementary therapy community.

It seems that the general organisational status of complemenatray therapy is loosely analagous to that of mainstream medicine preNHS and the course of that organisation can be studied as a pathway to avoid.

A number of things spring to mind:-

• Complementary therapy needs to organise and produce credible regulatory organisations and registers that police standards and protect the public from the whackier elements. This is already happening in some areas like osteopathy but needs to be widespread and if possible universal. An overarching organisation with the authority negotiate with government akin to the General Medical Council or the General Dental Council needs to be formed to be the ultimate arbiter in this area. This is the only way that self policing will be allowed.
• Vitally, the above needs to in place and have governmental credibility so that therapists ar not forced (or "mouths stuffed with gold") into a parallel NHS. If this doesn't happen then piecemeal legislation will remove the potential corporate power of complementary therapy and divide and rule. All sorts of rules and targets that the therapists need to carry on in practice will be imposed by government to the detriment of therapists and patients. See where a centrally controlled NHS has led, with doctors revolting in some areas and the dentists voting with their feet.

• Therapists need to consider patient plans with monthly payments instead of the near universal item of service system of payment

There are major lessons to be learned by complementary therapy from the current ructions in the NHS.

Mike Matthews - Editor