Sue Young Homeopathy

Aneurin Bevan was a supporter of homeopathy and in 1945, he introduced the National health Service to the United Kingdom.

Aneurin Bevan was a member of The National Council for Civil Liberties which was founded by Ronald Kidd, grandson of homeopath Joseph Kidd.

Aneurin Bevan promised that:

”homeopathic institutions will be enabled to provide their own form of treatment and that the continuity of the characteristics of those institutions will be maintained”.*

The Countess of Mar (Crossbench) | Hansard source Thursday, 7 December 2006
In the past, Governments have reaffirmed their commitment to homeopathy in the NHS, a commitment made originally by Aneurin Bevan.

The 1945 General Election proved to be a landslide victory for the Labour Party, giving it a large enough majority to allow the implementation of the party’s manifesto commitments and to introduce a programme of far-reaching social reforms that were collectively dubbed the ‘Welfare State’ (see 1945 Labour Election Manifesto).

The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered Housing. Thus, the responsibility for instituting a new and comprehensive National Health Service, as well as tackling the country’s severe post-war housing shortage, fell to the youngest member of Attlee’s Cabinet in his first ministerial position.

The free health service was paid for directly through government income, with no fees paid at the point of delivery. Government income was increased for the Welfare state expenditure by a severe increase in marginal tax rates for the wealthy business owner in particular, as part of what the Labour government largly saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers.

The collective principle asserts that… no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means. Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p100

On the “appointed day”, July 5, 1948, having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party, and after a dramatic show down with the British Medical Association, which had threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service, Bevan’s National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force.

After eighteen months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals.

Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had “stuffed their mouths with gold”.

Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan’s supervisory control as Health Minister.

Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth) Wednesday 17 July 2002 I should say as an aside, however, that the person who really got the process going was Aneurin Bevan, who had a homeopathic doctor—the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward) is looking quizzically at me, but that is true. Bevan said that homeopathy would be brought into the health service and made available through doctors, and qualified doctors can now prescribe homeopathic medicines on the health service.

The only slight problem at the moment is that they cannot get those medicines up on their computers, and the Minister might want to examine that problem.

None the less, that was the decision that Bevan made all those years ago.

David Tredinnick (Bosworth, Conservative) Wednesday, 4 July 2007 Link to this | Hansard source May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his promotion, but say to him that I am astonished that Professor Darzi is working only two days a week on the project? I thought that it was urgent. Surely he should be doing more. May I alert the right hon. Gentleman to a potential problem at his Department of which he may not be aware? There are two important reports on the regulation of Chinese medicine and herbs by Professor Pitillo and the late Lord Chan. He must act on them because European legislation is round the corner and it would be very much in the mode of Aneurin Bevan, who had a homeopathic doctor and wanted a fully integrated health service.

Alan Johnson (Secretary of State, Department of Health) Link to this | Hansard source Well, well, if it was good enough for Nye, it is good enough for me. I will look into that, but may I clarify the fact that Professor Darzi is working two days a week for the NHS. He is an esteemed surgeon, and he does that free of charge, incidentally. It is important that he carries on his practice. I know that the Opposition will not appreciate this. I heard their comments from a sedentary position about his being a Minister, but I think it is right that he is a Minister and that he continues to practise. That gives him a special focus. He is already hugely esteemed and highly valued in the profession, but taking away one or other of those aspects would not make his role any easier and, indeed, would diminish it.

The Guardian newspaper so loathed Labour’s left wing champion Aneurin Bevan ‘and the hate-gospellers of his entourage’ that it called for Attlee’s post-war Labour government to be voted out of office (Manchester Guardian, leader, 22 October 1951).

* Swayne, Jeremy, 1992, “The cost and effectiveness of homeopathy” in the British Homeopathic Journal Vol 81, pages 148-150.

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