The new standard on Services of Medical Doctors with additional qualification in Homeopathy was published last October. This European Standard (EN 16872:2016) shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by April 2017, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by this date.
This Standard includes required knowledge and skills of medical homeopaths, relationship between conventional and homeopathic approaches, clinical practice of homeopathy, code of ethics and conduct, basic education requirements and continuous professional development. This European Standard is not applicable to services provided by persons not being medical doctors, nor to the preparation of homeopathic medicines, nor to the methodology and practice of homeopathic provings.
This European Standard was prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 427, which was chaired by Dr Thomas Peinbauer, former President of the European Committee for Homeopathy (ECH), and the secretariat was held by Mrs Annette Altenpohl-Steurer from the Austrian Standards Institute. The Committee included representatives from several ECH countries.
The Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language has the same status as the official versions. The Standard is copyrighted and can be obtained from the CEN national standards bodies.
With this CEN standard, medical homeopathy has achieved a major step forward at the level of the recognition of its status in Europe.