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UK health spending on homeopathy has fallen sevenfold
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
UK healthcare spending on homeopathy has fallen seven and a half times in 15 years. In 2010, NHS staff wrote out more than 16,000 prescriptions for homeopathic remedies.
The total cost of the drugs prescribed to Britons is estimated at £122,000. Thus, only one thousandth of the NHS budget, which is about £11 billion, was spent on homeopathic treatment.
According to the NHS Information Centre, in 2000 doctors wrote out 134,000 prescriptions for homeopathy at a total cost of £831,000. The peak in spending on the alternative treatment method (£915,000) was recorded in 1996.
In the summer of 2010, participants at the annual conference of the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to end NHS funding for homeopathy. A few months earlier, several hundred Britons had staged a protest against the alternative method. The protesters attempted to make a show of "overdosing" on homeopathic remedies to disprove their effectiveness.
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