Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent remember the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.
Pembury is a large village in Kent, in the south east of England, with a population of 6,128 at the 2011 Census. It lies just to the north-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells.
The NHS treatments blacklist is an informal name for a list of medicines and procedures which will not be funded by public money except in exceptional cases. These include but are not limited to procedures which the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has ruled of limited effectiveness and particular brand name medicines. In 2017 there was a proposal for 3,200 over the counter (OTC) drugs to be restricted and 18 procedures to be added to the list. This generated some controversy amongst doctors with some arguing that OTC should be blacklisted instead, and others believing the move didn't take into account individual patient needs.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is a large NHS Trust in the English National Health Service that manages hospitals in Kent, primarily managing Maidstone Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury. It took over the Crowborough Birthing Centre, formerly run by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust in November 2015.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
Homeopathy is fairly common in some countries while being uncommon in others. In some countries, there are no specific legal regulations concerning the use of homeopathy, while in others, licenses or degrees in conventional medicine from accredited universities are required.
NHS South East Coast was a strategic health authority of the National Health Service in England. It operated in the South East region, along with NHS South Central, providing coterminosity with the local government office region.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is an NHS foundation trust based in London, United Kingdom. It comprises University College Hospital, University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street, the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre, the Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals, the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine and the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital.
South Bristol Community Hospital is a community hospital in the Hengrove area of Bristol, England, on the site of the former Whitchurch Airport. It opened in March 2012. It is managed by the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.
Maidstone Hospital is a hospital in Barming, Maidstone, England. It is managed by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.
The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine is a specialist alternative medicine hospital located in London, England and a part of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is the largest public sector provider of complementary medicine in Europe. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, adjacent to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The Kent and Sussex Hospital was a district general hospital located on Mount Ephraim in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England serving the West Kent and East Sussex areas. It was managed by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust until it closed in 2011.
Tunbridge Wells Hospital is a large district general hospital in Pembury near Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. The hospital is located on Tonbridge Road, around 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north-west of Pembury, close to the A21 trunk road. It is surrounded by woodland on three sides.
Healthcare in the city of Bristol, England and the surrounding area is largely provided by the National Health Service (NHS), through the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire clinical commissioning group. Facilities include a large teaching hospital – Bristol Royal Infirmary – which offers nationally commissioned specialist cardiac, cancer and children's services from its city-centre campus to patients in the southwest of England and beyond.
The Good Thinking Society is a nonprofit organisation promoting scientific scepticism established by Simon Singh in September 2012.
Innisfree Ltd is a fund management company based in the United Kingdom which manages substantial interests in private finance initiative (PFI) schemes in the UK, Canada, Sweden and Holland. It invests funds in social infrastructure projects, such as hospitals and schools, on behalf of institutional investors such as local authority pension funds. The company has a portfolio of 56 projects with a capital value of over £18 billion.
Healthcare in Kent is now mainly the responsibility from 1 April 2020 of the Kent & Medway Clinical Commissioning Group. Certain specialised services are directly commissioned by NHS England, coordinated through the South East integrated regional team. Some NHS England structures are aligned on a Kent & Medway basis, others on a South East basis and there is liaison with London that provides many tertiary healthcare services to the residents of Kent.
The UK National Health Service has historically supported a number of hospitals which were created to primarily offer homeopathic treatments. Following declining support within the NHS for homeopathy as a treatment, all but one have now either closed down or substantially modified their activities.
Bristol Homeopathic Hospital was a hospital in the city of Bristol in south-west England, specialising in homeopathic treatments. The Hampton House building, designed by George Oatley, is a Grade II listed building. Hampton House is now being used as the student health service for Bristol University, offering a range of services to the students of the university.
The NHS Centre for Integrative Care, formerly the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, is an NHS treatment centre specialising in homeopathic treatments on the Gartnavel Hospital campus in Glasgow. It is managed by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
