In its response to the House of Commons science and technology committee report on homeopathy, the government said patients should be able to make informed choices about treatment.

The House of Commons science and technology committee recommended in March that homeopathy should no longer be available on the NHS. The committee said the absence of evidence of homeopathy’s efficacy meant it should not be available on the NHS.

In its response to the report, the government said: ‘We believe in patients being able to make informed choices about their treatments, and in a clinician being able to prescribe the treatment they feel most appropriate in particular circumstances, within the regulatory and guidance frameworks by which they are bound.’

It added: ‘Our continued position on the use of homeopathy within the NHS is that the local NHS and clinicians, rather than Whitehall, are best placed to make decisions on what treatment is appropriate for their patients - including complementary or alternative treatments such as homeopathy - and provide accordingly for those treatments.’

The health White Paper states that the NHS Commissioning Board will not have the power to restrict the power the scope of the services offered by the NHS.

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