The NHS has been accused of embracing ‘dangerous quackery’ by giving reiki energy-healing and other unproven treatments to cancer patients.
More than one in 10 cancer units in England were found to offer the alternative therapies, despite scientific evidence they do not work.
Researcher Leslie Rose, a member of the Royal Society of Biology, surveyed NHS trusts to find those using reiki, aromatherapy, reflexology and flower remedies on cancer patients.
While no clinics claimed reiki or similar therapies could improve a patient’s prognosis, the word ‘healing’ was commonly used – which Mr Rose said was confusing.
He accused the health service of ‘telling fairy stories’ and distracting patients from effective scientifically-proven therapies.
Reiki is a Japanese therapy that claims to harness ‘energy’, supposedly reducing stress and improving well-being
Complementary therapies like reiki and reflexology are being offered to cancer patients in at least 11 per cent of NHS cancer units
He said: ‘Reiki is just hand-waving. Patients are told they have imaginary entities in them called meridians, and patterns on their feet, and that energy is transferred to them which is supposed to control their health.
‘It’s all just fiction, and it distracts them from concentrating on things that may actually make them feel better.
‘The NHS trusts said they weren’t attempting to cure cancer with any of these treatments, but that’s the minimum that they should be saying.
‘They might say that distracting patients from their disease by telling them fairy stories is okay, but I don’t think it is, because it involves lying to them.’
Reiki practitioners claim to ease stress and promote well-being by channelling an individual’s invisible life-force and balancing their internal energy ‘meridians’.
Mr Rose said no NHS patient could have given informed consent to receive reiki or similar treatments, because they could not have been given accurate information.
‘If they were told it might make them feel better, that is misleading,’ he said.
‘It may be argued that placebo effects are relevant, but to get placebo effects to work, you have to lie to the patient.
‘Studies have repeatedly shown that these treatments do not work, and they don’t even make people feel better.
‘If anything does, it’s the interaction with another person. You might as well have just a nice conversation and a cup of tea.
‘Instead, the NHS is paying people with ‘qualifications’ to administer this kind of nonsense.
‘It undermines efforts in the NHS to establish evidence-based clinical practice. For the sake of the patients, it must be stopped.’
For his research, published in the journal medRxiv, Mr Rose trawled NHS websites for mentions of alternative therapies including reiki, aromatherapy, EFT (emotional freedom technique), reflexology, chakra balancing, therapeutic touch, Indian head massage and Bach flower remedies.
He found 23 trusts that appeared to offer these treatments to cancer patients, out of 169 trusts in England that provide cancer care.
He made requests to each of these trusts under the Freedom of Information Act. Out of them, 19 (11 per cent) confirmed they were currently offering pseudoscientific practices in oncology and palliative care.
Others said they had since stopped offering reiki, while others claimed they did not have the necessary data or could not respond.
Mr Rose added the number of trusts offering alternative therapies could be much higher. For example, there may be some that do not publicly advertise their services online.
‘My suspicion is that there is far more of this going on than than I was able to detect,’ he said. ‘My study was concentrated on this particular specialism. But I believe quackery of many kinds is absolutely rife in the NHS.’
Professor Edzard Ernst, a world-renowned expert on alternative medicine, said offering reiki to cancer patients is dangerous.
Professor Edzard Ernst believes offering unproven alternative remedies to NHS patients puts lives at risk
‘People may think that if the NHS offers it, there must be some evidence behind it, when there isn’t,’ he said.
‘The NHS is misleading patients. The evidence for these treatments is negative or non-existent. Trusts may think these alternative treatments cannot do any harm, but they’re mistaken. They do a lot of harm.
‘People who are offered this stuff by the NHS may recommend it to others with life-threatening conditions like cancer.
‘It could kill people if they think ‘reiki can cure my cancer, so I don’t need do this nasty chemotherapy’.
‘Either we take evidence-based medicine seriously or we don’t. If we don’t, then anything goes and people will die.
‘I’ve spent the last 30 years fighting against misinformation about alternative medicine at all levels, so this is very close to my heart.’
