Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) is a regulatory body in the United Kingdom which provides a voluntary register of complementary, rather than alternative medicine, therapists. The key purpose of CNHC is to act in the public interest and enable proper public accountability of the complementary therapists that it registers.

The CHNC was founded in 2008 with government funding and support and became fully operational in early 2009. In 2013 it was approved as the holder of an 'Accredited Voluntary Register' by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA). In December 2014 it became an 'Accredited Register', for the PSA.

In November 2000, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology reported on complementary and alternative medicine and considered the public health policy needs and NHS provision of these treatments. In one of its many areas of consideration, the report considered the needs to provide public protection by regulating practitioners. It noted that those practices that could injure patients were either already statutorily regulated (chiropractic and osteopathy) or were soon to be (herbalism and acupuncture).

The remaining largely placebo based therapies and those without a sound evidence base for their efficacy and robust regulatory systems (e.g. reiki, massage therapy, aromatherapy, yoga and homeopathy), suffered from having a large number of fragmented registration bodies with considerable diversity of standards. The House of Lords found this unacceptable and that "in the best interests of their patients such therapies must each strive to unite under a single voluntary regulatory body".

The House of Lords described the necessary features of an effective voluntary self-regulatory body. These included having a register of members, educational standards, a code of ethics and practice, a public complaints mechanism, and the capacity to represent the whole profession.

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