Acupuncture Awareness Week

Acupuncture Awareness Week

I subscribe to a number of Acupuncture professional journals as well as receiving the quarterly newsletter from my professional body, the British Acupuncture Council.

I am always amazed at the extensive range of studies that have been carried out into a huge variety of medical conditions – both physical and mental emotional.

The British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) is the largest registering body for acupuncturists who are not doctors. When I qualified in 1991, I joined the professional body connected to where I trained.
Then in 1995, the BAcC was formed to bring the various registering bodies under one umbrella.

The BAcC has many hats and has worked hard to make the public aware of the efficacy of Acupuncture. It also provides support to members, giving advice and sharing information on all things professional. Since the pandemic, we are also offered a range of free online training opportunities, over and above the Continuing Professional Development  (CPD) we are required to participate in annually.

Over the years, there have been attempts to apply for state registration and even Royal Charter status. For various reasons, mainly due to political changes and the priorities of various governments, this has not been possible. In spite of this, there are a number of examples of acupuncture being available on the NHS including in obstetric care in a number of hospitals.

I myself, worked for many years on the NHS in a busy inner London GP practice – where all the patients were referred from the doctors and were able to access treatment without cost. I took the opportunity, the second time I went back to work at this practice, to embark on a piece of research, in collaboration with the University of Westminster, where I used to be a Senior Lecturer. This research project showed that the majority of patients referred, who mostly had chronic long term conditions, showed statistically significant improvements to their presenting conditions and to their general wellbeing and quality of life.

For more information, here is the link to the article:

Patient experience of acupuncture provision in a GP practice:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S174438811200028X

The BAcC have collated information about research in acupuncture for Acupuncture Awareness Week.
https://acupuncture.org.uk/news/getting-to-the-point-of-the-research-and-evidence/

m.fixler@japaneseacupuncturelondon.com

http://japaneseacupuncturelondon.com