The CNHC have released the minutes of their July board meeting, and the contents provide a fascinating insight into the actions of the alternative medicine regulation company dubbed 'OfQuack' by critics. In this post I'll trawl through a wealth of titbits concerning their response to criticism, openness, and the activities of Mandate, the PR company they're spending public money to hire.

Transparency:

The first big revelation from the company is that they plan to open up their board meetings to observers, as part of their somewhat debatable commitment to transparency. Interested members of the public can apply for the three guest slots that will be opened at each meeting. I've applied, and it'll be interesting to see how they respond to a critical freelance journalist (so far, no response). They also plan to release a "Performance Indicators Paper" online, but this has yet to appear.

Previously, the CNHC's approach to transparency has been verging on the comical; blocking attempts to find out the number of registered members, changing their policy on releasing minutes and then hilariously pretending that the minutes from last November had never been posted.

On the Freedom of Information Act, the minutes state that policy now will be to refer requests to the Department of Health. Since the regulator is a private company, that leaves people reliant on information provided voluntarily, or documents filed at Companies House. Needless to say, this is hardly an ideal situation for a body responsible for public health.

Membership:

It's especially worrying when the regulator itself has such an... eccentric approach to its task. Take for instance this announcement from the new minutes:

MW reported that she was discussing the possibility of a celebratory event when the number of registrants reached 2,000, in the autumn but that no decisions had yet been made.

Holding a celebration upon reaching 2,000 registrants may not seem that weird, until you remember that OfQuack's stated target in December was to have signed up 10,000 members by the end of 2009. So the board are planning an event to celebrate falling eighty percent short of their target. It does beg the question, what exactly would you have to do to disappoint a CNHC board member?

While the CNHC claim to be dedicated to transparency, they make no such commitment to reality. One easy way around this headache-inducing cognitive dissonance was to simply change history by rewriting their December press release, changing 10,000 to 4,000.

The reason for this abject failure to bring alternative medicine practitioners on board is simple - most of the relevant professions already have their own cosy regulatory arrangements, and are loath to sign up for membership of some new government-approved body.

And so the CNHC's target of 10,000 was retrospectively changed to 4,000, and they now plan to celebrate getting 2,000 this Autumn. As it happens, this is a still a bit optimistic as by our count they have a grand total of, er, 661 people signed up (602 massage therapists, 52 nutritionists, 7 aromatherapists - Hat Tip to Alan Henness).

They might indeed reach 2,000 members by autumn, but it probably won't be this autumn. Still, you can say what you like about the CNHC, but at least they don't allow their commitment to positive thinking to be undermined by anything as trivial as 'facts'.

Report to the Dept. of Health:

Indeed, if you really want to enjoy some comedy fiction you can read their May 2009 report to the DoH (thanks to FOIA requests by Tony Brooks and Andy Lewis), in which their totals are outlined next to their projected estimates; estimates which seem to have been simply plucked from thin air.

They admit that as of the end of April only 232 members had registered, but then claim that their target for January through April was to register only 61 members per month. It seems frankly incredible that anyone predicting 4,864 members by the end of the year (interestingly this report disagrees with the press release mentioned earlier) would predict getting only 243 of them in the first third of the year!

This monthly prediction then suddenly and inexplicably jumps to 364 in May, 410 in June, 678 in July, 678 in Augist and 702 in September, by the end of which they project a cumulative total 3075 members. As we know, they currently have 661. Their business plan predicts cumulative income of £115,570 from registrations by the end of September, yet they will be lucky if they reach £30,000, a short-fall of over 60%.

The numbers are even harder to explain when you remember that in December they originally predicted 10,000 members would sign in 2009. This was only changed on their website in June, very shortly after this report with its odd numbers was released to the DoH. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that.

Public Relations Spending:

Section 9 of the board minutes is largely devoted to the activities of Mandate, the public relations company they hired back in May, whose pages on health lobbying make the bold claim that "evidence is everything", an ideology they presumably don't require their clients to adhere to.

9.1.3 MD reported on a meeting she and MW had had with Mandate to formulate a strategy to help publicise CNHC activities with local newspapers and radio. Some suggestions were made for targeting specific radio programmes such as You and Yours and Women’s Hour. It was noted that the Media Tool Kit for PAs currently being prepared would be available shortly and would be sent to Board members for information. It was also noted that Board members may be required to help out with exhibition and conference attendance.

The real question is what they're planning to promote. If they're trying to let the public know that there's a new service you can complain to in the event that you get stiffed by a quack, then fair enough. The problem is that in previous board meetings members have advocated promoting alternative medicine itself:

JG suggested the possible use of patients with ‘good news’ regarding complementary therapies on www.patientvoices.co.uk.

This would obviously be an enormous conflict of interest for a regulator. It would be helpful if the CNHC could clarify what they plan to promote, and make it clear that they will not in any way promote the alternative medicine industry. It will be interesting to see what this PR campaign looks like.

Wider Engagement:

Staying with PR, but moving away from Mandate's activities, there are a couple of further points of interest.

10.1.6 It was agreed that CNHC should not have a presence on the WhatDoTheyKnow.com website.

For those who don't know what "WhatDoTheyKnow" is, it's a website that publishes FOIA requests and their responses. Several requests relating to the CNHC are on the site, and frankly given their content it's not surprising that the CNHC are not planning to engage with it.

Finally, it's nice to see that the company are still dwelling on their difficult relationship with the blogosphere.

10.1.7 It was agreed that CNHC should not respond explicitly to inaccurate information in blogs.

This is not the first time that the CNHC have alluded to false or inaccurate information circulated by their detractors. As before, they make no reference to specific claims, nor any attempt at rebuttal. I can't speak for other bloggers, but armed with the raw numbers and their own words, I'm pretty comfortably with my position.

Their own is looking increasingly untenable. With the next government likely to have a mandate to crack down on public spending excess, a company sucking in DoH money to fund a business plan that looks indistinguishable from fantasy has to be a prime target. In signing up just 661 members against an original target of 10,000, the CNHC is dying. The kindest option would to put the lame duck out of its misery.