‘THE INTEGRATED HEALTHCARE COLLABORATIVE‘ claim to be a collection of the leading organisations within the field, who are committed to working together to improve healthcare in the UK. They believe that a truly integrated healthcare service would improve patient experiences, bring about better patient outcomes, and provide a framework for a more cost-effective delivery of healthcare services.
Their purpose is as follows:
To bring together professional associations and stakeholders within complementary, traditional and natural healthcare, to identify common areas of interest, and to collectively take forward agreed objectives to promote greater integration with conventional Western medicine.
Objectives:
- To increase public awareness, knowledge and understanding of complementary, traditional and natural healthcare.
- To raise issues in integrated healthcare with government and decision-makers.
- To provide information on complementary, traditional and natural healthcare to the media and interested parties.
- To promote the benefits to public health of greater provision and integration of complementary, traditional and natural healthcare.
- To develop co-ordinated strategies to help patients access accurate information on integrated healthcare.
- To facilitate better access to, and choice of, appropriate complementary, traditional and natural healthcare within the NHS.
- To empower the public to share responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
- To encourage whole-person, individualised healthcare.
- To advocate collaboration with conventional Western healthcare professionals.
- To support the development of a robust and appropriate evidence base.
They sate that Integrated Healthcare involves combining the best of conventional Western Medicine with a range of complementary, traditional and natural therapies.
The IHC brings together the following leading organisations, who are Core Members and lead our work.
- Alliance of Registered Homeopaths (ARH)
- Association of Energy Therapists (AET)
- Association of Naturopathic Practitioners (ANP)
- Association of Physical and Natural Therapists (APNT)
- Association of Reflexologists (AoR)
- Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture (ATCM)
- British Complementary Medicine Association (BCMA)
- British Reflexology Association (BRA)
- Chinese Medical Institute and Register (CMIR)
- Craniosacral Therapy Association (CSTA)
- General Council and Register of Naturopaths (GCRN)
- Faculty of Homeopathy (FoH)
- Federation of Holistic Therapists (FHT)
- International Federation of Professional Aromatherapists (IFPA)
- Kinesiology Federation (KF)
- McTimoney Chiropractic Association (MCA)
- National Institute of Medical Herbalists (NIMH)
- Shiatsu Society UK (SSUK)
- Society of Homeopaths (SoH)
- Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT)
- UK Reiki Federation (UKRF)
The IHC also provide revealing paragraphs about several so-called alternative medicines (SCAMs) on their website. This is where I have found a host of interesting statements. Here are just 6 examples:
- Chiropractic treatment mainly involves safe, specific spinal manipulation to free joints in the spine or other areas of the body that are not moving properly.
- Science is starting to understand the mechanism of action of ultra-high dilutions in the body, and homeopathic medicines are gentle, safe to use and in widespread use across the world.
- By testing … muscles the kinesiologist can get a picture of what is happening in your meridian system and how this may be affecting you.
- Radionics is a healing technique in which your natural intuitive faculties are used both to discover the energetic disturbances underlying illness and to encourage the return of a normal energetic field that supports health.
- Reflexology is a complementary therapy based on the belief that there are reflex areas in the feet and hands which are believed to correspond to all organs and parts of the body.
- [Reiki] is a tradition that is open to any belief system and benefits may include deep relaxation and the promotion of a calm peaceful sense of wellbeing.
And here are 6 corrections of the above-listed statements:
- Chiropractic involves unsafe spinal manipulation to free customers of their cash.
- Science has long understood that there is no mechanism that could possibly explain homeopathy.
- By testing muscles, the kinesiologist pretends to do something meaningful in order to be able to bill the customer.
- Radionics is a con technique that is counter-intuitive, implausible and unrelated to energy.
- Reflexologists believe to have shown conventional anatomy and physiology to be mistaken.
- Reiki is a tradition and a belief system demonstrably out of touch with reality.
PS
If the IHC want to change their text and adopt my corrections, I would waive my fee for this efforts.
26 Responses to A new kid on the block: ‘THE INTEGRATED HEALTHCARE COLLABORATIVE’
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It saddens me there are so many delusional, insane people on the planet AND they are allowed to vote.
“The IHC builds on over 30 years of work and collaboration between the former All-Party Parliamentary Group for Integrated Healthcare and the leading organisations in the field.” – … former… has the APPG been disbanded or is this IHC the new name, or has something else sprung up in its place?
I am not sure
There have been 2 registers of APPGs published so far this year, see here: https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/registers-of-interests/register-of-all-party-party-parliamentary-groups/registers-published-in-2020/
I can’t see Integrated Healthcare on either; as far as I can see the last one it appeared on was published 5th November 2019.
It’s not new. Companies House shows a registration date of October 2013. The sole Director is Matthew Williams. Williams was an aide to David Tredinnick and looks to have been heavily involved in the running of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Integrated Healthcare (PGIH). IIRC, Williams was involved in the cut and paste ‘Integrated Healthcare: Putting the Pieces Together’ report. Williams also stood for election as a Conservative.
thanks – interesting!
I’m not sure how they imagine this is going to help them. Presumably some people won’t know who they are and might think that they’re a going concern – but then we can come along and put them right so that won’t last. Also there’s still no good evidence for any of the listed modalities so docs / scientists / skeptics still hold the trump cards there too.
It’s comically sad to imagine all this ‘busy work’ effort going into building up something which can’t succeed.
1. Take notice of the fact the British Chiropractic Association is not a part in this since Chiropractic is not an alternative or complimentary medical profession.
2. You state “chiropractic involves unsafe manipulation”… Is there any evidence to support that claim? Or is it the same old witch hunt???
3. Please explain at what level do you define safety?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12015249/?from_term=ernst+e%2C+stevinson+c%2C+spinal+manipulation&from_sort=date&from_pos=1
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20642715/?from_term=ernst+e%2C+death%2C+chiropractic&from_sort=date&from_pos=2
PLUS
~ 100 posts on this blog
1. “Chiropractic treatment involves safe, often gentle, specific spinal manipulation to free joints in the spine or other areas of the body that are not moving properly. Apart from manipulation, chiropractors may use a variety of techniques including ice, heat, ultrasound, exercise and acupuncture as well as advice about posture and lifestyle.” [my emphasis]
― British Chiropractic Association
To Guy (who is probably not a ‘Dr’ at all):
You are quite correct: “Chiropractic is not an alternative or complimentary medical profession.”
Chiropractic is not a medical profession of any sort.
That’s the point.
apart from the fact that Guy cannot spell complementary medicine, of course.
…and that he believes “A profession has the right to define itself.” Thus allowing for the “no true chiropractor” fallacy to reveal its head.
As a non medical person with an interest in some aspects of health and in evidence-based medicine, I think I would answer those three questions thus:
1) Indeed. None of the SCAM modalities are proper medical professions.
2) Yes there is evidence. Dr. Ernst and Dr Singh mention some in their books, and this YouTube video from chemist Miles Power also mentions some interesting statistics, along with a horrifying case of paralysis and mortality during and following manipulation by a chiropractor: https://youtu.be/FyZSWS6FdTA
The risk of stroke due to spasm of or damage to main arteries in the neck, following head and neck manipulation is well-attested. There is also financial harm, of course.
3) My definition of safety would involve avoiding ‘treatment’ methods that have not been reliably demonstrated to do any good.
1. A profession has the right to define itself and chiropractic has never been ” alternative medicine”.
2. Safety is not defined by terrible case reports rather than by degree of safety in a statistical frame.
This is the basic thing you learn when dealing with medical risk management.
So I ask again… From what level of complications do you consider an intervention to be unsafe???
This is a simple question please try and provide a simple answer.
the very 1st website when you google ‘alternative medicine’
https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/what-is-alternative-medicine#1
and hundreds more agree.
Hundreds like you that never studied chiropractic …
Now again i ask from what level of complications do you define a procedure as unsafe? 1/100? 1/100,000 ? Its a simple question why can’t you provide an answer?
because there is no numerical answer:
1) it would require adequate monitoring of AEs [which does not exist;
2) it depends on the severity of the AEs.
and also: safety cannot be judged in isolation; it’s the risk/benefit balance that is important.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/patient-safety
We both know why you avoid giving an answer. Please read the WHO report and remember these numbers next time you term chiropractic care as unsafe.
And YES safety level is a numeric statistical term and that is exactlly why WHO and governmental reports world wide consider chiropractic safe.
Please consider the evidence even when it does not suit your agenda.
I did not know your are clairvoyant
??
@ Mr Almog
of course it’s complementary (please note the spelling)
it’s not proper medicine and you are not a qualified doctor – so what else could it be?
the matter of risk is always the risk/benefit ratio – is the benefit greater than the risk?
since there is NO demonstrable benefit from chiropractic except maybe some small improvement in lower back pain that can equally be achieved with physiotherapy (despite all the hand-waving and all the vastly hyped claims to the contrary)
– then it is NEVER going to be worth the risk however you quantify it.
There I sorted it for you!
Did you not read your citation properly Mr. Almog? The article is about substandard care in “low- and middle-income countries”. This does not mean proper, modern health care is at fault. They are encouraging better appliance of proper modern health care, not substituting substandard care in low- and middle-income countries with even lower standards like So Called Alternative Medicine.
I am constantly amazed at the use of the name “Kinesiology” by these charlatans.
https://www.kinesiologyfederation.co.uk/about-kinesiology/
My first itntroductioon to real kinesiology was through the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo. A quick browse around its webste gives a bit of a different impression of the field (area…?). It was not until I read something about “Applied Kinesiology” that I realized how warped the concept had become.
A chiropractor saved my father’s life. When my dad was 14 1/2 years old he was 6 ft tall, strong and athletic. That summer in a one week span he suffered 2 injuries. A pole volting accident where the pole broke and he got twisted up in a clothes line and fell on his head. The other he was riding full gallop on a horse and his cousin who was riding close by spooked the horse with rattle snake rattles and the horse came to a complete stop and my dad flew over the horse. He returned home and during a 10 day period, pain moved from his neck and eventually to his lower back and his legs gave out on him. He was bed ridden for 9 months unable to move his legs. During this time, medical doctors insisted he must have polio even though they could not find any virus in his spinal tap. During this time my father was unable to hold down food and basically lived off of apple juice and 7 up. His strong 6 ft frame shriveled down to a 100 pounds. He was dying. My grandmother and grandfather argued for months. My grandmother wanted a chiropractor to see him and my grandfather insisted they were a bunch of quacks. Eventually my grandfather gave in as my dad was clearly wasting away. Within hours of the chiropractic adjustment my father regained his appetite. Eventually he was able to work his way to getting up on crutches. Unfortunately, because so much time was wasted and my dad didn’t get the chiropractor right away, his muscles atrophied. He was left walking with a severe limp the rest of his life. Thank God his life was saved. I have several friends that say the benefit from their chiropractics. Im also aware that as in any field, you will find good ones and not so good ones.