I'm having a quick look into the cost of our homeopathic hospitals.
According to this Keep taking the Arsenic:
NOTE: that's new and follow-up appointments so the actual number of patients treated will be less than that - possibly a lot less.Last year, there were 44,887 new or follow-up appointments at Britain's five homoeopathic hospitals, in Bristol, London, Glasgow, Tunbridge Wells and Liverpool.
For simplicity, I'll deal with appointments only and assume that the patients are shared equally between the 5 hospitals. Each hospital will have 8977 appointments each per year (173 per week).
Now according to David Colquhoun, a reasonable estimate of the cost to the taxpayer of the London Homeopathic Hospital is £4.7million a year: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc...ack.html#rlhh1
Now, £4,700,000/8977 = £523 per appointment.
Obviously that's a rough estimate but it's likely to be reasonably close to the truth.
Value for money? I think not.
As they've used a figure that includes appointments rather than patient numbers it means that if a patient has a consultation and several follow-up appointments then the cost per patient will rocket. It's probably costing thousands of pounds to treat each patient - treat them with sugar pills that is.
Has anyone else looked into this?
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Well, there are a few questions to ask here. Are these "homoeopathic hospitals" doing nothing but consultations and handing out sugar pills, or do they provide more "orthodox" treatment with homoeopathy as a sort of adjunct? Do they have inpatients, with the additional costs that entails? How much does a proper hospital cost per consultation? And how much is spent on all 5 "homoeopathic hospitals" in total?
As far as the last two of those are concerned, I think I'll look into making a "freedom of information" application. The others may be more difficult to ask about.
As far as that goes, unless it actually works it's a complete waste of money.Originally Posted by John Jackson
I'm not sure Mojo. I think that the RLHH does provide some services other than homeopathy but I'm not sure what they are and what percentage of expenditure they take.
It will be interesting to find out.
That's my concern. If we're spending millions on treating people with homeopathy then I consider that a complete waste of resources.As far as that goes, unless it actually works it's a complete waste of money.
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Never mind millions.
If we're spending anything at all on something that doesn't work it's a waste of resources!
The problem is that the powers that be don't seem to see it like this. They are likely to simply look at how much it costs per patient, and not worry about whether the treatment offered is effective.
Hence, for example, the focus of the Smallwood report on "cost-effectiveness".
Just to bump this thread.
It's absolutely outrageous that homeopathic hospitals should continue to get NHS funding at the same time that wards are closing, nurses are being layed off etc.
We should really try to raise this topic to get a nationwide discussion, and hopefully the decision to withdraw any taxpayers' money from these places. Somehow I feel that a letter to my local MP would achieve nothing (Sir Alan Haselhurst (Con.), Saffron Walden).
Any suggestion to get something rolling ?
*cough*
http://badhomeopath.com
Does anyone know what influence HRH Prince Charleswoo has historically had on the opening/continued NHS funding of these hospitals?
I know he's been leaning on the PM recently to get CAM funded by the NHS generally, and he came up with that wacky biased research paper to support his argument, but I don't know if he has had any influence on the hospitals.
Cause, y'know, five is a lot. An awful lot.
Let me see I have understood this?
The NHS funds Homeopathic Hospitals
My 5 local Marie Currie and MacMillan Palliative care centres together with the Yorkshire Air Ambulance are all funded by charitable donations
ooooooooooookay???????????
How does a middle aged Tyke get entry status to New Zealand
Yes, I think a large part of the running costs etc. are funded by the taxpayer. I believe the actual homeopathic treatments (prescriptions?) are paid by the patients.
I don't know all the ins and outs as yet - this is a topic I want to tackle this year though.
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Well I haven't really tackled this issue yet but I did start looking at the 5 homeopathic hospitals we have in the UK.
The first thing of note is that they are all relics from the pre-scientific past. Most were founded in the mid 19th century.
The second is they are not exactly large establishments. The Liverpool homeopathic hospital, for example, seems to be a small department located within a larger NHS hospital.
The image that homeopaths and credophile reporters like to give is that we have 5 NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK, but in reality they are not what we think of a hospital being. Certainly the smaller ones are more like homeopathic departments.
It will be interesting to just how small they actually are if I can get figures.
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The one in London is pretty large if memory serves - it's certainly housed within a large building, anyway, but I don't know if that entire building is given over to it or just part.
I think the London one has 8 consultants so even that one is not particularly big for a 'hospital'.
I think I read that one of the others (probably the Liverpool one) is run by one single consultant.
When I have time, I'm going to look into just how small these 'hospitals' really are.
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IIRC, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital" has just had a £20M refurb, and it's just down the road from Great Ormond Street too. >:(
From memory the refurbishment was in 2001 and although £20,000,000 was spent only £18-19,000,000 was taxpayers' money.
Prof David Colquhoun estimates that the RLHH costs the taxpayer around £4,700,000 per year in running costs.
Here's a link: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc...ack.html#rlhh2
A drop in the ocean in the NHS budget but if that money were redirected into the children's hospital down the road, I know I'd be happier knowing my tax money was going there rather than into treating people with sugar pills. >:(
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