Actress gives backing to new centre

Actress Hayley Mills has visited Bath to show her support for a new training centre for doctors and nurses.

The star, who appeared in Whistle Down The Wind and later in ITV drama Wild At Heart, opened the new Faculty of Integrated Medicine (FIM), which will offer groundbreaking training to medical staff.

Based at Bailbrook House in London Road, the centre will run the UK's first Diploma in the Study of Integrated Medicine.

Integrated health care aims to combine the best of all medical treatments, including orthodox, complementary, psychological, nutritional, spiritual and self-help.

Graduates from the FIM will be able to evaluate the benefits of using integrated medicine.

The course was launched by Bath-based charity the Integrated Health Trust, which aims for the centre to strive for the optimum treatment and prevention of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic illnesses.

Faculty director Dr Rosy Daniel said: "The skilful motivation of the public to change their health-defining behaviour just can't happen fast enough for the NHS, which is at crisis point dealing with rapidly rising levels of lifestyle preventable diseases such as obesity-related diabetes, heart disease and cancer."

She said type 2 diabetes now affected one in 20 adults and was caused mainly by obesity, while some forms of cancer and heart disease were sparked by poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise.

She said the growth of the conditions was "on an unsupportable trajectory which health economists are predicting will put the health system into financial meltdown".

Dr Daniel added: "The real power and importance of the integrated medicine model is to shift individuals from a passive to a proactive relationship with their health, getting people fully engaged in promoting their health and well-being, whether ill or seeking to prevent illness."

Trust adviser Professor Karol Sikora said: "This is a remarkable and ambitious initiative aiming to bring IM into routine use throughout health care in Britain.

"It urgently requires a focus for training, teaching and research that this project envisages.

"The combination of ageing populations, technological progress and an informed, demanding clientele will result in increasing financial strain in all health care environments.

"Predominantly tax-based systems, such as Britain's NHS, are particularly vulnerable to meltdown unless new approaches can be found to return people to health with simpler and cheaper holistic strategies."

Dr Daniel, medical director of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre from 1993 to 1999, worked for six years at the Harley Street Oncology Centre.

Prof Sikora is a former chairman of the Department of Cancer Medicine at Imperial College and is honorary consultant oncologist at Hammersmith Hospital in London.