The British Complementary Medicine Association has expressed concern that the training qualifications of teachers of Complementary Medicine (CM) often fall short of what is required to ensure the health and safety of the public.

Further Education (FE) colleges are including CM courses in their curriculum and, in some instances, do not employ qualified tutors or practitioners in the subject being taught. Often the qualifications achieved by students are well below the existing high qualifying standards of individual BCMA member associations, which puts their credibility in doubt.

The courses provided by such colleges usually have a short duration of between 10 and 20 weeks, offering no more than 20 to 40 hours tuition. This compares unfavourably with the recognised minimum of nine months with approximately 100 to 150 hours tuition for a single therapy. For many Complementary and Alternative Therapies the minimum training period is two years or more.

It would appear that for some FE colleges, filling classrooms to achieve commercial viability, takes priority over safeguarding the health and safety of the public and is inadmissible in such a sensitive area of the public domain. The result is that poorly trained and unqualified therapists are unleashed to practice on an unsuspecting public.

The BCMA supports and endorses the Department of Health’s submission to the Lords Select Committee on ‘Complementary and Alternative Medicine’ which states that "In the interests of patients and raising standards of service, the Government’s aim is to ensure that all those who deliver CAM treatments, whether orthodox health professionals or CAM professionals, should have received training in that discipline independently accredited by the appropriate CAM self-regulatory body."

Tom Lafferty, BCMA Chairman says "The BCMA would like to work more closely with FE Colleges to lead to the raising of standards in the delivery of Complementary Medicine training. To further this aim the BCMA is aiming to set up a National Register of qualified tutors from which Colleges can access competent tutors for staff appointments".