This is the downloadable CPP press release: ..and the downloadable Department of Health press release:
Last year the Department of Health (DH) ran a consultation on the future of herbal practice in the UK, with regards to its statutory regulation. We believe that the public will be best served by making the practice of herbal medicine a statutorily regulated profession. The consultation closed on 16th November 2009. Please read the CPP response to the consultation in the pdf document below. We understand that the DH has received thousands of responses to the consultation and that they plan to announce their decision as to whether the practice of herbal medicine should be statutorily regulated or not in March 2010 at the earliest! This time-scale risks running into the General Election and a possible change of Government. There is a real urgency to this issue because from April 2011 a piece of medicines legislation called the Traditional Herbal and Medicinal Products Directive will be enforced. If herbal practitioners are not statutorily regulated by that date then we will not have the status of "authorised healthcare practitioner" that is necessary for us to be able to access many of the herbal products that we currently prescribe. Should we fail to become statutorily regulated we will be unable to prescribe the full range of herbal medicines upon which our patients depend. Such a scenario reduces patient choice and will have severe repercussions for the many thousand of patients who rely on professional herbal medicine to keep them well - often where conventional medicine has failed. This would most clearly NOT be in the public's interest. It is important that the DH remain focussed on this issue and to encourage them to prioritise it we are asking all people who believe that the public's best interest will be served by statutorily regulating herbal practitioners to write to their MP and to the Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, to make sure that this crucial issue is not overlooked. Peter Conway, CPP President To view or print PDF (Portable Document Format) files, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download this program for free: |
 Our aim is to bring together a team of professional Herbalists who recognise the huge recent scientific endorsement of our medicine and become the Phytotherapists of the 21st Century. Hein H Zeylstra (Founder)
The College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy (CPP) is a professional membership organisation of phytotherapists that sets the highest standards of practice in herbal medicine.
Phytotherapists (‘phyto’ means ‘plant’ in Greek) are dedicated herbal practitioners with specialist university training. They combine orthodox medical knowledge and skills with scientific understanding of plant medicines.
Concern for a solid and credible scientific basis in medical herbalism and for professional standards in practice led Hein Zeylstra, a prominent herbalist and the founder of the School of Phytotherapy, to establish a professional body in 1991. Today, the CPP continues to set the standard worldwide as the body for ensuring the highest quality research, education and practice. All members are required to participate in a professional training scheme updating them with the latest scientific developments. The CPP exists to protect the public interest and it continually monitors its members as to their fitness to practise. It has members in 11 countries including Australia, South Africa, Canada and the USA.
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CPP-Herbal-Regulation-Press-Release.