Discover the RCCM

The work of the RCCM

Dr. John Hughes, Co-chair of the Research Council for Complementary Medicine shares the aims of the organisation…

THE Research Council for Complementary Medicine (RCCM) is a charity founded in 1983, dedicated to developing high quality research in complementary medicine. Ultimately our vision is to widen the availability of and access to safe and effective complementary therapies for patients within the National Health Service and across the UK, in order to help in preventing disease and improve patients’ health and quality of life.

The RCCM does not believe that CAM should replace conventional medical care, but rather complement it. There is a growing research evidence base that CAM therapies have a valuable and effective role to play in the treatment of many diseases – from yoga, massage and acupuncture to mindfulness and meditation. We’re seeing a shift in the NICE treatment guidelines for many illnesses – especially chronic and lifestyle diseases – that mean CAM is becoming more accepted within the NHS. Indeed, there are holistic therapists and healers working as part of patient care teams in several NHS trusts. Globally, the World Health Organisation has declared the validity of traditional medicines alongside allopathic treatments.

Personally, I’d prefer to see CAM treatments offered before pharmaceuticals. We all know that conventional medicine sometimes comes with a downside. In can be incredibly effective, but sometimes brings unpleasant side effects as a result. Where people are on multiple medications, we know quality of life is reduced, so it make sense to promote a healthier lifestyle to reduce chronic illness. For me, that means we should be looking at effective self-management of symptoms, then non-pharmacological solutions, with a pharmacological approach being last in the treatment strategy. This would not only improve quality of life, but also be more costeffective.

Our members are researchers, practitioners and non-commercial organisations involved with the complementary medicine sector; both the CNHC and the CHP are members. Subscribing members have access to extensive resources for CAM research and access to our LinkedIn network. Individual memberships cost £50 per year, with corporate memberships being £200 each year. We advocate high-quality research into complementary medicine using appropriate and rigorous research methods and peerreviewed protocols and publications.

Recent research findings from Australia and New Zealand have reinforced our experience that holistic therapists and CAM practitioners often have restricted or no access to research resources, such as academic journals and there are difficulties translating research findings into clinical practice, so we aim to address this via the information hub on our website and through our training events.

We’re also trying to facilitate the involvement of industry membership associations in research through our corporate membership scheme and to break down the barriers to collaboration between practitioners and academic researchers, particularly in multi-disciplinary research. Twenty of the leading professional bodies spanning all sorts of modalities are members, from hypnotism and homeopathy to shiatsu and aromatherapy.

If we are to achieve our aims of incorporating evidence-based CAM within the NHS, we need to work together to break the barriers to collaboration within the CAM industries and to form bonds between practitioners and associations and researcher in universities and other institutions. We hope that our members’ discussion space on LinkedIn will facilitate this.

One of the main challenges CAM researchers face is the difficulty in accessing research funding. We’d like to see more projects that objectively measure the effectiveness of CAM treatments in an NHS setting. There’s also the problem that there are very few universities in the UK which focus on research and teaching in this area. Over the past decade, we’ve made considerable progress in beginning to see CAM becoming more integrated into the NHS. There are holistic therapists working alongside surgeons and in specialist palliative care settings and helping offset the side-effects of cancer treatments, but there are, clearly, many more areas where integrating appropriate CAM treatments into patient care would be beneficial.

For example, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM), where I am Head of Research, is a centre for evidencebased practice, education and research, specialising in chronic and complex medical conditions. Our mission is to provide a person-centred, holistic approach, including self-care, in order to help people with chronic and complex medical conditions live well and feel better.

In order to achieve this, we provide a combination of lifestyle strategies, medical, physical and psychological treatment, as well as advice on safe and appropriate use of complementary therapies. It’s an out-patient only facility. We also deliver and encourage self-care approaches which can continue to be used by patients after discharge. It’s an approach I, and everyone involved with the RCCM, hopes will become more commonplace.

At RCCM, we see our goals as looking outwards, engaging with regional, national and international organisations who share our values and working with them to continue to build an active and empowered community of UK CAM researchers. That means reaching out to CAM practitioners and researchers working across the UK, and looking further afield to strengthen our international presence through collaborating with international organisations and events. We’d like to set up regional groups to be hosted in established CAM research centres to facilitate engagement with holistic therapists and researchers. This September, the charity’s conference included presentations on topics as diverse as a feasibility study on the effect of virgin coconut oil on the cognition, brain function and quality of life in older people with dementia and the integration of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) into the Czech healthcare system. Other papers spanned wearable technologies, yoga for IBS, the trial of a pulsed EMF device to improve feelings of wellbeing among those with Type 2 diabetes, nutritional knowledge and menopausal symptoms, the attitude of Fertility Physicians to TCM, and hand selfshiatsu as a sleep promoter. Abstracts of the papers and poster presentations are available from https://www.rccm.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2022/09/RCCM-2022-ConferenceAbstract-Booklet.pdf. n

iDR JOHN HUGHES is the Head of Research for the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, UCLH NHS Trust. He is also an Associate Professor with the University of West London, and co-chair of the RCCM. To find out more about the work of the RCCM, the events the organisation holds, membership and how to become involved in research, please visit www.rccm.org.uk