Page last reviewed: 07 April 2021
Next review due: 07 April 2024
Homeopathy is a "treatment" based on the use of highly diluted substances, which practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself.
A 2010 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on homeopathy said that homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebos (dummy treatments).
In 2017 NHS England said it would no longer fund homeopathy on the NHS as the lack of any evidence for its effectiveness did not justify the cost. This was backed by a High Court judgement in 2018.
What is homeopathy?
Homeopathy is a complementary or alternative medicine. This means that homeopathy is different from treatments that are part of conventional Western medicine in important ways.
It's based on a series of ideas developed in the 1790s by a German doctor called Samuel Hahnemann.
A central principle of the "treatment" is that "like cures like" – that a substance that causes certain symptoms can also help to remove those symptoms.
A second central principle is based around a process of dilution and shaking called succussion.
Practitioners believe that the more a substance is diluted in this way, the greater its power to treat symptoms.
Many homeopathic remedies consist of substances that have been diluted many times in water until there's none, or almost none, of the original substance left.
Homeopathy is used to "treat" an extremely wide range of conditions, including physical conditions such as asthma and psychological conditions such as depression.
Does homeopathy work?
There's been extensive investigation of the effectiveness of homeopathy. There's no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition.
Is homeopathy available on the NHS?
Homeopathy isn't widely available on the NHS. In 2017, NHS England recommended that GPs and other prescribers should stop providing it.
This is because they found "no clear or robust evidence to support the use of homeopathy on the NHS."
In 2018 a High Court ruling backed NHS England's recommendation after the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) challenged the decision.
Homeopathy is usually practised privately, and homeopathic remedies are available from pharmacies.
