Friends of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine

First founded in 1975, the Friends of the RHLIM have been supporting the hospital and its patients for many years.

In the early days, there were two main roles for volunteers to take part in, the first was becoming a trustee, and the other was to take charge with running the snack bar.

the Friends do a lot more than just providing refreshments, over the years they have funded a variety of social events, water fountains and chairs. They have also provided plants and benches as quiet spaces on the roof gardens of the hospital.

In 2007, the antagonism towards complementary therapies generally, and homeopathy in particular, being fuelled by a few vocal but well placed individuals, led to the Friends becoming more politically involved to protect the hospital's viability and the services it offered to patients. So the Trustees, volunteers and supporters began to campaign - running petitions, writing to MPs, going on protest marches and more. They also ran workshops for patients to understand how commissioning worked and how patients could contact their local commissioning groups to put forward their views.

In 2017, NHS England announced a consultation on whether homeopathy should remain available on the NHS, with all indications that they had already decided to cut funding for this and other complimentary therapies. This was devastating news for patients using or seeking homeopathic treatment, and for the hospital that served them. The British Homeopathic Association (now Homeopathy UK) with the Friends as supporting partners, decided to take NHS England in an attempt to reverse the decision Unfortunately, after a Judicial Review in 2018, the judge found in favour of NHS England England. However, despite the cost and the result, both the BHA and the Friends still felt it was important to highlight the fact that many people benefited from and still wanted homeopathic medicine to be provided by the NHS.

This result means that patients looking to receive homeopathic treatments can still go for a consultation, but the doctor isn’t able to prescribe the required homeopathic medicine, the patient will have to purchase these privately.

Today, the Friends are still recovering from the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and don’t have much of a visible presence within the hospital. Sadly due to the implications caused by the lockdown, the snack bar was closed and it’s not yet known whether it will ever reopen. This is a shame, as the snack bar wasn’t just a place for refreshments and socialising, but it was also somewhere that the Friends, through its volunteers were able to have a visible presence and interaction with staff and visitors alike.

All of the meetings the Friends have had within the last two years have taken place over zoom, and patient consultations have taken place over the phone or internet.

Despite this, the Friends continue to support the hospital with grants for a variety of ventures as diverse as continuing professional development for staff, research projects – and even appointment cards – that are not funded by the NHS.

The Friends of RLHIM are always happy to welcome new members, especially people who would like to join the board of trustees. Due to the closure of the snack bar, there isn’t currently a need for general volunteers, but do keep a look out for when we are recruiting again!

For more information on this organisation, please visit our Friends Voices website.