CORH – a quorum of quackery (part two)

At long last here is part two of CORH. This post is primarily to make the public the back stabbing, money grabbing and devious actions of the main contributors. There will be another post over the weekend looking at the fallout, plans for the future and the apparent defection of prominent members of one society to another.

A quick recap:

CORH was founded in response to the recommendations of a House of Lords (HoL) select committee report on complementary and alternative medicine. The good Lords recommended that:

that there is a clear need for more effective guidance to the public on what does or does not work

that the public interest will best be served by improved regulatory structures of many CAM professions

that government should, through a 10 year programme, develop a small number of centres of excellence for conducting CAM research

that in terms of NHS provision, only those CAM therapies what are statutorily regulated or have a powerful mechanims of voluntary regulation, should be made available through the NHS

CORH was setup primarily to act on the last recommendation, the non medically qualified practitioners (NMPQs) did not want statutory regulation so opted for the formation of a powerful voluntary body with its terms of reference as follows:

a) to establish a single voluntary, self-regulating register of professional homeopaths

b) to establish a common code of ethics

c) to establish criteria and procedures for the registration of homeopaths to a single UK register

d) to establish an accreditation board to accredit courses of homeoapthic education

e) to define, promote and continally evaluate the elements and standards of best homeopathic practice.

The organisations described in part one were all involved in the set up and running of CORH, and ultimately, its downfall. Right from the start of the organisation funding was an issue and it was the homeopathic obsession with money that lies at the root of all CORHs problems.

The issue of future funding is crucial to the success of CORH’s plans and needs to be addressed as matter of considerable urgency.

Superficially CORH seems like a reasonable idea as it would have required its members to sign up to continued professional development, an accreditation process as well as a code of ethics based on the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) version. As I have indicated previously the SoH’s code of ethics is the most comprehensive of all the organisations although it does have some parts that its members are free to ignore. These parts are replicated in CORHs version:

Professional advertising must be factual and not seek to mislead or deceive, or make unrealistic or extravagant claims. Advertising may indicate special interests but must not make claims of superiority or disparage professional colleagues or other professionals.

Claims, whether explicit or implied, orally or in writing, implying cure of any named disease must be avoided.

All well and good and a welcome step to preventing the most egregious abuses of the profession. However, in mid 2007 CORH collapsed in chaos. This wasn’t due to doctrinal disputes over latter day interpretations of Hahnemanns works, confusion over the precise role of homeopathy in healthcare or the dread hand of big pharma. No, the collapse of CORH was due to the organisations involved being more interested in accepting tributes to mammon than in ensuring their profession was organised, accountable and respected. In particular the two largest members of CORH, the Association of Registered Homeopaths (ARH) and the SoH are responsible for the mess.

So how did the bitter break up happen, I think it’s only fair to let each of the main organisations in CORH present their own versions of the truth. First up is the Homeopathic Medical Association (HMA) with their analysis:

At the November 2006 CORH Council Meeting a proposal was put forward by a limited few, together with the CORH Executive, to put in the budget for 2007 an expenditure item of £44,000. This was to be paid to the SoH in order for the SoH to continue its own Course Recognition Scheme until the new CoRH (the proposed name for new Single Register: ‘Council of Registered Homoeopaths) was able to get its own Course Accreditation scheme fully up and running. This was met with some great resistance, including from the HMA and some course providers themselves. It was felt that it was inappropriate for a fledgling organisation, without any real sense of what its income will be, to be funding the activity of one of its members to such an extent. Furthermore, it was agreed that it was inappropriate for an organisation to vote for a proposal that would benefit itself so generously.
As a result of the disagreement over the proposals to fund SoH Course Recognition by £44,000, there was a great deal of confusion over what the budget for 2007 should be and what levy the professional organisations would be required to pay to CORH. Several organisations were waiting for an outcome to the disagreement, and were withholding some part of the levy while things were being clarified. The SoH were among those that did not pay the full amount that had been determined as the required levy. Being the largest member of CORH and therefore paying the largest contribution (levies being based on a per member charge), this meant that there was a severe funding crisis.
A meeting was held in April to resolve the difficulties that had arisen as a result of the demand by the SoH that CORH pay it £44,000 in 2007. An agreement was reached among the other organisations to pay a levy of £15 per member and to request a further £35 per member and to provide services in lieu of the payment that the SoH was demanding so as to facilitate the establishment of the new Single Register. The HMA subsequently confirmed that it was willing to pay a total levy for the year of £50 (the sum that the SoH had been demanding in their response to this proposal, put by the Interim CEO/Registrar of CORH – Trish Brady). The SoH had been arguing that the sum of £50 per member was required in order to assure the work of CORH in 2007. Since this was agreed upon, it became very clear that the SoH were actually insisting that CORH pay it the £44,000. As a result, the SoH refused to accept the compromise brokered by Trish Brady, and an impasse ensued.
Two subsequent meetings have taken place since, both with independent facilitators/mediators. In both meetings all the organisations present reiterated their
commitment to the establishment of the single Register & Regulatory body. All stated that they were prepared to pay the £50 levy per member to fund CORH activity for 2007. Sadly, the SoH refused to accept anything less than a firm commitment by CORH to giving it £44,000; a sum which it doesn’t have.
Sadly, the ARH decided not to attend the very latest of these meetings, and appears to be withdrawing from the commitment to a Single Register. This is a great pity and, almost certainly, will be bitterly regretted by their members.
It seems extremely bizarre that the SoH seems to wish to cause a complete collapse of the CORH process for the sake of insisting on CORH paying £44,000, when it has no firm income or reserves, whilst the SoH had a surplus last year of £72,000 and reserves of £300,000.

Oh dear, the SoH seem to be evil money grabbing shameless scumbags. They were trying to squeeze all the spare cash and then some from an organisation set up to defend the respectability of homeopathy. The ARH also seem to have cowardly run away from the argument, a tactic beloved of homeopaths everywhere. Lets have a look at what they say:

Prior to the establishment of RHom, the SoH had already started to try to recruit ARH members. Following the announcement of RHom, this campaign has intensified, and it is fronted by Paula Ross, the non-homeopath Chief Executive of SoH. SoH have launched an aggressive propaganda campaign to coincide with membership renewals to ARH. This campaign can be viewed as an overt attempt to subvert ARH members, and recruit them as members to SoH. Paula Ross has also circulated a letter containing false information. The main points are set out below:

1. In a letter from Paula Ross dated 30/08/07 to myself (Karin Mont) Chair of ARH (and apparently first circulated on the SoH intranet before being sent to me) the SoH claims that in November 2006, CORH Council agreed to pay the SoH £44,000K towards maintaining its ‘recognition of colleges’ process. This is not the case. A budget was agreed by CORH Council at the November 2006 meeting, but not how the income generated would be used. The issue of the proposed payment to the SoH of £44,000K has been exhaustively debated at all subsequent CORH meetings, and the facts remain unchanged: CORH Council did not authorize any such payment to the SoH, no minutes, contracts or other documentation exists to support the SoH’s claim to receive such a payment, and only CORH Council had the powers to authorize any such agreements.
2. This letter also states ‘At no point has CORH ever paid money over to The Society‘. This is an astonishing assertion that either displays complete ignorance of basic accounting procedures on the part of Paula Ross, or is a deliberate attempt to mislead. The SoH withheld the payment of £7,733.33 to CORH to set against the fee they had decided CORH was going to pay them, even though this had not been authorised by CORH Council. In accounting terms, this represents a payment made by CORH to SoH, and furthermore, this payment was unauthorised by CORH Council.
3. In the same letter Paula Ross suggests the collapse of CORH was due to ARH not asking their members to pay £50 each, ‘reporting instead their members would simply not agree to it.’ This is a false and misleading claim. ARH had already committed to paying to CORH the amount they had budgeted for, and were prepared to ask their members for the shortfall. ARH were clear to point out that as this request was for a voluntary payment, there was no guarantee it would be forthcoming. From December 2006 onwards, ARH repeatedly pointed out to the Chair of CORH and to CORH Council, both in writing and verbally, that CORH was in danger of allowing its expenditure to exceed its guaranteed income, a warning that went unheeded with disastrous consequences.
4. Paula Ross claims ARH were invited to attend an ‘independently mediated’ meeting proposed by the SoH on 25th July 2007. The ARH received an email circulated to all CORH Council participants announcing the meeting. ARH were separated out from the other groups invited, and conditions placed upon their attendance: ‘A representative from their organisation (ARH) will be welcome to the proposed meeting if they are in agreement with the aims as listed and are prepared to contribute £313.65 towards the costs of the meeting.’ ARH responded by enquiring (among other things) what was being mediated, and questioning how impartiality could be guaranteed when the mediator being engaged for this proposed meeting had previously worked for the SoH. ARH received no reply to these fundamental questions, and no attempt was made by any other party to contact ARH to clarify matters or present an unconditional invitation.
5. SoH has sent a ‘Position Statement’ dated 04/09/07 not only to its own members, but also to ARH members. The statement makes a number of inaccurate claims regarding the Register of Homeopaths (RHom) based upon general assumptions. At no time has the SoH attempted to establish the actual facts. The claims made, and the conclusion drawn, ‘The Society would not recommend that its members join the Register of Homeopaths’, represent a deliberate attempt to discredit the Register of Homeopaths.
6. SoH has sent out inaccurate and defamatory information to ARH members to coincide with ARH membership renewals. This communication has been accompanied by information and registering documents inviting ARH registered members to join SoH. This at the very least, constitutes unethical behaviour.

SoH appear to be deliberately attempting to discredit and defame its principal rival organisation ARH, in order to create a monopoly. It also appears determined to deny homeopaths freedom of choice, by undermining RHom from the onset. By contrast, RHom has been constituted to respect the autonomy of existing organisations, and build upon the work of existing structures, as opposed to destroying them, which CORH was likely to do. The majority of the homeopathy profession have been asking for the establishment of a registering and regulatory body that is based upon clear, easily comprehensible principles, is inclusive of the majority of practising homeopaths, and is cost effective. The RHom is constituted to encompass all these qualities, and thus has the potential to bring the profession together in a meaningful and lasting manner. However, the SoH’s recent actions suggest that they are more concerned about preserving their own position of power within the profession, than representing the actual needs of practising homeopaths.

And in the interests of fairness here is the SoH’s response:

Dear colleague

On 3rd September, 2007, The Society of Homeopaths attended a special meeting of The Council of Organisations Registering Homeopaths (CORH) Council.

The agenda for this meeting stated:

“At a meeting held on 25 July 2007, at which all but one of the professional associations registering homeopaths was represented, it was proposed that the Council of Organisations Registering Homeopaths be dissolved.

This Special General Meeting of the Council is to agree whether this formal dissolution of the Council should be taken forward. A vote will be taken.

Once the vote has been taken, and if it is in favour of dissolving the Council, there are a number of steps that need to be taken. These are set out below:

The outstanding debts of the Council need to be discharged. A statement setting out the current financial position, as at 13 August 2007, of the Council is attached. The current creditors fall into two broad groups:

• Those professional associations who acted in good faith on the budget agreements relating to 2007, and voted and agreed by all members of the Council at its meeting in November 2006, and who have paid in full or in part their agreed allocation of income to the Council
• Individuals and service suppliers who have not been recompensed for their services to the Council, either in full or in part.

There are two professional associations that have not yet paid the amounts agreed which are needed to close the Council and discharge its debts. They are:

• The Alliance of Registered Homeopaths
• The Complementary Therapists Association (which also has debts from previous years relating to the number of practitioners on its website being greater in number to the amount per capita paid to the CORH).”

Regrettably, the meeting turned away from the agenda to focus on proposals not only to overturn the budget and business plan agreed in November 2006 but to retrospectively change payments which 8 associations had already made to settle any outstanding debts to CORH.

The meeting also focussed on the sum of £44,000, written in to the CORH Business Plan. This sum represents the 2007 net cost of The Society’s course recognition process, which CORH Council, following a proposal from its Accreditation Working Group, had unanimously agreed in November 2006 as a reduction to The Society’s fees. In return, CORH asked The Society to continue to run its course recognition processes, acknowledging that there was need for secure transition between The Society’s course recognition and CORH’s accreditation process. CORH Accreditation Working Group had reported that it would be unrealistic for CORH’s accreditation group to manage accreditation for 20 – 30 courses immediately and that the new process needed piloting as a first stage. It would, therefore, be far cheaper and more effective to ask The Society to continue to run its own processes for the benefit of the whole profession until the new process was fully operational.

In January 2007, CORH’s Implementation Group requested that The Society draw up a service level agreement to formalise these arrangements, which The Society subsequently worked on with CORH’s Interim Chief Executive, Trish Brady.

During this time, The Society continued to act in good faith by providing quality assurance via its Education department’s course recognition process to ensure a secure transition between The Society’s recognition process and the accreditation process devised by CORH.

The Society also finalised a fee schedule for payments to CORH, with effect from January 2007.

However, by the end of April 2007, the ARH and the HMA had not paid any fees at all to CORH, which placed it under an impossible financial pressure. The Society then attended three further meetings, including an externally mediated meeting, in an attempt to find a way forward to achieve a single register and regulatory body for homeopaths.

The meeting on the 3rd September once again raised these differing viewpoints, with a final agreement being reached that the differences were irreconcilable.

The Society therefore left the meeting having fulfilled all of its obligations to CORH: ie it had agreed to the dissolution of CORH and had paid in full (3rd July) the proportion of the final debt, as invoiced by the CORH Executive.

Nevertheless, The Society remains committed to an independent register and regulatory body for homeopathy in the UK, with standards commensurate with our own. This will not now be formed by CORH. However, The Society will continue to work towards its establishment,

Lastly, The Society wishes to thank all of its members for their support during this process and in particular, their ongoing commitment to The Society – the only register that currently operates as a register and full regulatory body in the UK.

10th September 2007

What a nest of vipers CORH is. You have the SoH trying to steal members from other organisations, the ARH excluded/hiding from meeting, disputes over cash payments and missing minutes and accusations that Paula Ross isn’t even a homeopath! Looks like statutory regulation might be the only route to go down. But this in itself raises problems. I think this editorial from the Faculty of Homeopaths magazine, Simile, about the establishment of CORH says it all:

CORH consultation
The Council of Organisations Registering Homeopaths is consulting widely about its proposals for the future selfregulation
of the homeopathic profession and in particular in the creation of a single register for those homeopaths whoare not already statutorily registered as doctors, nurses, pharmacists etc.
Both the BHA and the Faculty of Homeopathy have welcomed the progress made by CORH and have made a normal response to the consultation. The consultation period closed on 11 March and the results will be known later in the year.
CORH – some fundamental considerations
The various organisations of non-statutorily regulated practitioners who use homeopathy have been working together under the umbrella of CORH. The Faculty decided not to seek participation as a member in this work as all of our members are fully statutorily regulated already. The different organisations have very diverse views on the issue of regulation and CORH has achieved a pretty remarkable feat to have progressed the discussions to this point. However, now that they have formally published their proposals, we can see there are a number of fundamentally important issues which need to be tackled.
The first is, “what is a homeopath?” If a “homeopath” is anyone who uses homeopathy then the term covers everyone who ever takes or gives a homeopathic medicine to anyone else. If a “homeopath” is anyone who offers health care in return for financial reward (fee, donation or salary), and prescribes homeopathic medicines as a therapeutic tool of that health care, then it includes all of the members of the Faculty of Homeopathy. Is there another definition? CORH has rather ducked this issue and has defaulted to a reference to the National Occupational Standards for Homeopathy. This is an important issue because if a single register of those who call themselves “homeopaths” is to be created then how does the public understand the difference between a homeopath who practises dentistry, one who practises medicine, and one who practises … what? The public understands what kind of work doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, vets and podiatrists do, but do they understand what a “homeopath” does?
The second is, “how clinically active should a practitioner be to keep their practice standards up to date?” There is nothing within the CORH proposals to differentiate between those who are significantly active and make their practice their working life and those who see an occasional patient in an evening or a weekend. In other words, if the goal of CORH is to produce a single register of “professional homeopaths” then they need to define the characteristics which determine whether or not a therapist is a homeopath and whether or not they are a professional. These are issues which are important to Faculty of Homeopathy members – all of whom are homeopaths and all of whom are fully qualified, statutorily regulated health care professionals.

What is homeopathy? If an organisation representing homeopaths cannot even decide on a budget are they even capable of defining what they do for a living?