Statutory Regulation Of Practitioners Of Herbal Medicine
EDM number 205 in 2013-14, proposed by Bob Russell on 06/06/2013.
Categorised under the topics of Health services and Regulation.
That this House recognises that around eight million UK citizens rely on, use regularly or have used herbal medicines in the past; affirms that loss of the so-called herbalist's exemption, now part of the 2012 Human Medicines Regulations, would deprive herbalists of their prescribing rights in the absence of legislation enacting a state register of qualified herbalists; notes that two public consultations and two parliamentary committees have found overwhelming support for statutory regulation of UK herbal medicine practitioners; recalls the promise made on 16 February 2011 by the then Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, to set up such a register, a decision described by him at the time as one that 'resolves a long-standing issue, to the benefit of both practitioners and the public who use herbal medicines'; foresees that, in the absence of easy access by the public to herbal medicine practitioners with the ability to prescribe individualised remedies, many people will resort instead to entirely unregulated sources for their herbal medicines, such as the internet; believes that patients obtaining herbal medicines from unregulated sources will put themselves at unnecessary risk; questions the wisdom of restricting UK citizens' healthcare choices at a time both of unprecedented pressure on the National Health Service and of national austerity; and therefore calls on the Government to explain the greater than two-year delay in making available for consultation by the four UK Health departments draft legislation for a framework of statutory regulation for herbal medicine practitioners, and give the House an expected timeframe for the issue of the draft legislation.
This motion has been signed by a total of 26 MPs.
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