Spiritual healing on the NHS?

[Blue Wode]

From today’s Times:

Chinese complementary medicine can go mainstream, why not spiritual healing?http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/tol/life_and_style/health/alternative_medicine/article4317985.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/tol/life_and_style/health/alternative_medicine/article4317985.ece)


If you see Angie Buxton-King at work on the cancer wards at University College Hospital in Central London, she looks like any other medic: alert, down to earth, overworked. But her talents are different - she is a spiritual healer, one of a handful on the NHS payroll. But she hopes that, with new research and regulation of healing, there may soon be more like her.

You have to wonder why there's a need for “more like her” when, according to Professor Michael Baum,

“We are sensitive to the needs of patients for complementary care to enhance well-being and for spiritual support to deal with the fear of death at a time of critical illness, all of which can be supported through services already available within the NHS without resorting to false claims.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article723787.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article723787.ece)
(Presumably he’s talking about chaplaincy services and palliative care teams.)

Dr Rowley says: “I see experienced doctors call for the healer to help to support a child having a cannula put into a vein.
Whatever happened to good nursing?

Professor Edzard Ernst, of Exeter University, studied 110 patients with chronic pain, half of whom were treated by professional spiritual healers, the other half by actors pretending to be healers. “The results were staggering,” he wrote. “Several patients practically abandoned their wheelchairs. But there were no differences between the groups - if anything, the control patients fared slightly better. This suggests that spiritual healing is a strong placebo but not much more.”


Naturally, full-time healers dispute this. “I wanted to see if it was true so for a while I just practised on animals. I still saw positive results,” says Buxton-King.
Oh dear. For the benefit of new readers, see John Jackson’s excellent article 'It works in animals':
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_animals.php (http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_animals.php)


Regulating spiritual healers would be quite a challenge. There are 15,000 at work in the UK, and several governing bodies. But, says Buxton-King, “it's the only way it's going to go forward”.
But only, presumably, once the government has ascertained that the therapeutic benefits offered by healers are greater than placebo…
http://dcscience.net/?p=199 (http://dcscience.net/?p=199)

…or is that no longer a priority?
http://dcscience.net/?p=235 (http://dcscience.net/?p=235)

[dalriada]

I see that Angie Buxton-King's business website also states that she and her partner also treat cancer from their home:

Have a look:

http://www.angiebuxton-king.com/private_work.php

Is The Cancer Act (http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Primary&PageNumber=77&NavFrom=2&parentActiveTextDocId=1085680&ActiveTextDocId=1085680&filesize=26534) a purely imaginary piece of legislation these days? I would like to see some of these nonsense-and-death mongering charlatans prosecuted, with severely punitive damages and the money used to fund real nurses, who provide real care at considerably less cost per hour than the SCAM crew.

I love the way The Times reports this in the "Life and Style" section too. Dying stylishly is sooo important isn't it? Appallingly uncritical journalism from Jules Evans (http://web.mac.com/jules.evans/Site/About_Me.html). Glancing at his web-site, you will note, that to him, CANCER is a starsign.

[tkingdoll]

To be fair, though, not sure what the difference between this and chaplaincy services is.

[Mojo]

The chaplains don't claim they can cure anything.

[Julia]

Dalriada, where is Buxton-King based? I suggest that you get in touch with her local Trading Standards office.

[Julia]

To answer my own question the Buxton-Kings are based in Hemel Hempstead. I've had a quick google and found Hertfordshire Trading Standards:

http://www.hertsdirect.org/yourbus/tradingstandards/ustsd/

[Nasib]

To answer my own question the Buxton-Kings are based in Hemel Hempstead. I've had a quick google and found Hertfordshire Trading Standards:

http://www.hertsdirect.org/yourbus/tradingstandards/ustsd/



Extract from Psychic News, Saturday June 21, 2008



Are healers safe under new consumer laws?
(Susan Farrow)

Following the repeal on 26th May of the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, and its replacement with new Consumer Protection Regulations (CPRs), uncertainty abounds ...

Psychic News decided to contact a random selection of Trading Standards offices in an attempt to find out how they intend to interpret the new regulations in relation to the work of healers. Within minutes, one thing had emerged with startling clarity: there is little or no specific policy regarding the practicalities of implementing or interpreting the new legislation.
Our first call was to Hertfordshire Trading Standards office, who asked us, "When did this law come in?" ...

[filippo lippi]

Coming in from left field - The Blue Cat (from Dougal and The Blue Cat, the Magic Roundabout film) was called Buxton.

And becomes King.

King Buxton.

Kind of like Buxton-King.

Erm...

As you were.

[bindeweede]

More from the Buxton-King site.


Absent Healing/Distant Healing
Absent healing is available when it is not possible to visit the patient or it is not possible for the patient to be brought to our healing room. It is possible to transmit healing energy over any distance and this form of healing has proved to be very successful for humans and animals alike.
We keep a healing book within our healing room and every night spend time sending healing to all those who have asked for it. We have found that if a picture of the patient is sent to us the healing is more beneficial, we also require a weekly update to monitor any progress or change in the patients situation. Donations are welcome for this service.
Contact
Angie Buxton-King & Graham King
PO BOX 989
Hemel Hempstead



Transmitting healing energy? There is so much of this going on - don't they get some sort of interference?

[tkingdoll]

The chaplains don't claim they can cure anything.

Yes, that's very true. But the spiritual healer is not instead of anything, it's as well as, as far as I can see. I doubt any hospital would allow the healer in place of medical care. So as far as 'the NHS spending money on fairytales', I think they're about equal.

The important issue is whether this is in response to patient demand, or an NHS initiative. If the former, we can't particularly complain. If we are allowed to spend taxpayer money on hand-holding for the religious minority, we can't really refuse to spend it on hand-holding for people with equally silly beliefs. But if it's some fool at the top who has a personal interest in it, then that's different.

Personally I'd rather the NHS didn't pay for any non-evidence-based psychological support but that's not going to happen. If you feel better because someone holds your hand and talks to god with you, or someone waves a crystal at you, it's all the same hooey.

[tolman]

Actually, I think there is a fairly significant difference.

In the case of a chaplain, I can't really see anyone thinking that means that the NHS is suggesting that one or other deity actually exists.

In the case of a supposed healer, as in the case of the NHS funding homeopathy or any other kind of experimental pseudomedicine, some people may consider the association with the NHS as some kind of sign of validation.

[tkingdoll]

Actually, I think there is a fairly significant difference.

In the case of a chaplain, I can't really see anyone thinking that means that the NHS is suggesting that one or other deity actually exists.

In the case of a supposed healer, as in the case of the NHS funding homeopathy or any other kind of experimental pseudomedicine, some people may consider the association with the NHS as some kind of sign of validation.

I disagree. In fact I don't understand how you've come to that conclusion. Providing a requested service is either an endorsement or it's not. If it's an endorsement of a spiritual healer, it's an endorsement of a chaplain, and by extension what they represent. Plus, I don't see how this equates at all to homeopathy. I haven't seen anywhere that claims that the spiritual healing will be an alternative to real medicine, it looks to me like it's a psychological support service the same as chaplaincy. I disagree with both services being provided by the NHS but if the demand is there then we have to equal-handed.

[Blue Wode]

Once again, this from Professor Michael Baum:

“We are sensitive to the needs of patients for complementary care to enhance well-being and for spiritual support to deal with the fear of death at a time of critical illness, all of which can be supported through services already available within the NHS without resorting to false claims.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article723787.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article723787.ece)



Note that he says “…all of which can be supported through services already available within the NHS”.

So why the need for spiritual healers?

To me, spiritual healing is pretty much a duplication of chaplaincy services, but is far more unacceptable due to the therapists’ use of the word ‘healer’ which seems to imply that they are capable of eliciting specific effects. In addition to that, increasing the number of them on the NHS could easily see all sorts of other ‘energy’ healers demanding that they also be allowed to provide their services on the NHS.

Slightly off-topic, at least there's a little bit of good news today regarding the NHS and homeopathy:
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4120112&c=2 (http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4120112&c=2)

:smiley:

[Admin]

To me, spiritual healing is pretty much a duplication of chaplaincy services, but is far more unacceptable due to the therapists’ use of the word ‘healer’ which seems to imply that they are capable of eliciting specific effects.


Healing in a medical sense is different to healing in a spiritual sense and I agree, it gets used equivocally (often intentionally) to imply that spiritual healing means the curing of disease rather than simply being an emotional uplift (which I would say is more like what 'healing' means with regard to psionic healing practises).

I find this whole thing completely unacceptable. Professor Baum hits the nail on the head when stating that this is simply a duplication of services that are already there (nursing, palliative care, etc.) and only serves to give false legitimacy to unproven and indeed implausible claims.

[tolman]

On the positive side, the 'healers' in the Times article *were* self-funded, and it's possible that having extra people with good people skills can actually be useful.

However, looking more generally at the article the OP linked to:

Some scientists believe that, if it works, it is the result of a “healing intention” in the healer's mind. This might also help to explain why praying for the sick can help them to recover, as some research has suggested it does. A study in Israel, for instance, published in 2001, looked at two groups of people with blood infections, one prayed for, the other not. It indicated that the prayed-for patients had shorter stays in hospital, stayed feverish for less time, and were more likely to survive. It does seem rather badly phrased.
Effectively, it seems to be close to saying that it's a fact that "praying for people can help them recover", and adding on the "as some research has suggested it does" as a subsequent slight backing-off

The first sentence is desperately vague, and could mean one or two people with some qualifications that aren't even particularly relevant to the subject made some guess as to a possible mechanism without even having any reason to expect that the technique worked.
That's about as much use as a scientist speculating on how astrology might work if it was actually shown to work, and doing so in language so vague ("healing intention") as to be meaningless anyway.

That some scientists believe anything isn't really important anyway.
Why they believe is.

The journalist referred to a study showing that prayer worked, seemingly ignoring the studies that show the opposite.
If taken seriously, that Israeli study,
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=61047
wasn't simply about prayer helping people get better, it was about prayer changing history and affecting the health of people years previous to the prayer actually being made.

(As an aside, if I were a deity, by far the easiest thing for me to do would be to tinker with the study dataset than to actually change any medical outcomes in the distant past. Same result, with next to no paradoxes, just a few changes to a file or piece of paper that in theory, no-one knows the contents of. In that sense, the study may as well have been titled "All bets are off - [deity] could be fiddling with your data!")

However, the author's reply at the bottom of
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7344/1037#art
is interesting.
It doesn't seem like Prof. Leibovici is suggesting that the published study should be used as evidence for prayer working.

Don't proper journalists learn something about 'going to the sources'?
It took only me a few minutes to find the original article and then the follow-up comments of the author.

[Admin]

On the positive side, the 'healers' in the Times article *were* self-funded, and it's possible that having extra people with good people skills can actually be useful.

But they aren't there for their 'people skills'. They're there, as far as I can see, as a part of the medical set up. And their purpose is to promote the 'integration' of these unproven/disproven 'healing' techniques into the NHS. This is just one way of knocking down a barrier to it happening so we shouldn't be too taken in by the self funding point. It's a means to an end.

Obviously we'd need a statement from the hospital management concerned to ascertain exactly what the faith-healers' role is here as it's quite possible there's a positive slant put on it by the newspaper reporter who wrote the article. But...


Anecdotal evidence from former patients is in favour, but some healers accept that further proof will be required - which is partly why Buxton-King is carrying out a trial this year on reiki, a form of spiritual healing used in Japan, which will be funded by UCHIf that's true then it truly is an unjustifiable waste of taxpayers' money.

So it's not just about whether a self-funded extra pair of hands comes in, well, handy; but more about the overall willingness of some members of the NHS to embrace quackery at taxpayers' expense.

Like I said, it's not quite clear what the set-up at this hospital is regarding these faith healers but we can be sure that the hospital's flirtation with faith healing will result in no new knowledge. Yes patients like personal attention; and no, faith healing doesn't have any effect on a disease's progression or cure.

[tolman]

Correction: though the *other* healers are externally funded, Buxton-King is paid.

Still, that degree of self-funding might at least help explain why doctors in the unit were positive (assuming the journalist's reporting of them is representative...)

w.r.t the reiki study, I'd hope that it's properly done, with comparison between 'real' and 'sham' reiki, to try and allow for potentially significant placebo effects.