Charles's alternative health guide gets official backing

A patient's guide to alternative and complementary treatments published by Prince Charles has received Government approval.

The Prince of Wales's Foundation For Integrated Health booklet is the first comprehensive guide for patients on how to seek alternative treatments from the NHS, private practitioners or charities.

It has been part-funded by the Government, which has also given the foundation ?900,000 to help improve regulation of standards in the field of complementary medicine. The 50-page booklet gives advice on how to find therapists, check their credentials and qualificat ions and whether they are regulated.

Thanks in part to Prince Charles's support of alternative treatments nearly six million-people use complementary-medicine each year. However, only half of GP surgeries refer patients for such treatments and less than a quarter offer at least one therapy at their surgeries.

The guide's publishers hope to change that by giving patients information about what alternative treatments they can safely ask to be offered.

These include osteopathy, yoga, acupuncture, aromatherapy and reflexology - treatments once considered "far out".

The royal thinktank's chief executive, Michael Fox, said: "It is more acceptable these days to actually go to a complementary practitioner, but each of us has a different view of what therapy we might want and use."

Prince Charles will speak at a "healing environment" conference on Monday, bringing together doctors, architects, urban planners and social care experts to discuss how they can work to improve public health.