The NHS has been accused of adopting “dangerous quackery” by administering reiki healing energy and other unproven treatments to cancer patients.
More than one in ten cancer units in England were found to offer 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 with cancer patients.
While no clinic claimed that reiki or similar therapies could improve a patient’s prognosis, the word “healing” was commonly used, which Rose said was confusing.
He accused the health service of “telling fairy tales” and distracting patients from effective and scientifically proven therapies.
Reiki is a Japanese therapy that aims to harness “energy,” supposedly reducing stress and improving well-being.
Complementary therapies such as reiki and reflexology are offered to cancer patients in at least 11 per cent of NHS cancer units.
He said: ‘Reiki is simply waving your hands. Patients are told that they have imaginary entities called meridians and patterns in their feet, and that energy is transferred to them that is supposed to control their health.
“It’s all fiction and prevents them from focusing on things that could really make them feel better.
‘NHS trusts said they were not trying to cure cancer with any of these treatments, but that is the least they should say.
“They might say that distracting patients from their illness by telling them fairy tales is fine, but I don’t think so, because it involves lying to them.”
Reiki practitioners claim to relieve stress and promote well-being by channeling 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 provided with accurate information.
“If they were told it might make them feel better, that would be misleading,” he said.
«It can be argued that placebo effects are relevant, but for placebo effects to work you have to lie to the patient.
‘Studies have repeatedly shown that these treatments do not work and do not even make people feel better.
‘If anything does it, it’s the interaction with another person. You could also have a nice conversation and a cup of tea.
‘Instead, the NHS is paying people with ‘qualifications’ to administer this kind of nonsense.
“This undermines the NHS’s efforts to establish evidence-based clinical practice. For the sake of patients, it must be stopped.”
For her research, published in the journal medRxiv, Rose searched NHS websites for mentions of alternative therapies such as reiki, aromatherapy, EFT (emotional freedom technique), reflexology, chakra balancing, therapeutic touch, Indian head massage and Bach flower remedies.
It found 23 trusts that appeared to offer these treatments to cancer patients, out of a total of 169 trusts in England providing cancer care.
He made requests to each of these trusts under the Freedom of Information Act. Of these, 19 (11 percent) confirmed that 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 were unable to respond.
Mr Rose added that 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 much more going on than I could detect,” he said. “My study focused on this particular specialty. But I think quackery of many kinds is rife in the NHS.
Professor Edzard Ernst, a world-renowned expert in 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 that these alternative treatments can do no harm, but they are wrong. They do a lot of harm.
‘People who are offered this product by the NHS may recommend it to others with life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer.
“It could kill people if they think ‘Reiki can cure my cancer so I don’t need to do this nasty chemotherapy.'”
‘Either we take evidence-based medicine seriously or we don’t. If we don’t, anything goes and people will die.
“I’ve spent the last 30 years fighting misinformation about alternative medicine at every level, so this is something very close to my heart.”
