Doctors will this week call for a total ban on all homoeopathic treatment on the NHS.

Hundreds of delegates to the British Medical Association's conference are expected to support seven motions all opposed to the use of public money to pay for remedies which they claim are, at best, scientifically unproven and, at worst, ineffective.

Critics of the 200-year-old practice also want junior doctors to be exempt from working at homoeopathic hospitals because it goes against the principles of evidence-based medicine. Sugar pills and placebos have no place in a modern health service, they say, especially as the NHS must find £20bn in savings over the next few years.

But supporters claim homoeopathy helps thousands of patients with chronic conditions such as ME, asthma, migraine and depression who have not responded to conventional medical treatments. The British Homoeopathic Association (BHA) points out that less than 0.01 per cent of the massive NHS drug bill is spent on homoeopathic tinctures and pills.

Nevertheless, the conference will also hear calls for homoeopathic remedies to be banned from chemists unless they are clearly labelled as placebos rather than medicines. The over-the-counter market is worth around £40m a year, and rising, according to Mintel, the consumer research organisation.

The increasingly vocal dissent follows a report from MPs on the influential science and technology select committee earlier this year, which also urged the NHS to cease funding homoeopathic treatments due to a clear absence of scientific proof about its efficacy. The MPs criticised current licensing and labelling regulations which "lend a spurious medical legitimacy" to homoeopathic products which are no more than sugar pills.

But supporters of homoeopathy are passionate and are unlikely to take this lying down.

David Tredinnick, the Tory MP and outspoken supporter of complementary therapies, tabled an early day motion last week calling on the Government to reject calls for a centrally driven ban and instead allow local services and clinicians to continue making decisions. A protest will take place outside the BMA conference in Brighton on Tuesday.

Homoeopathy works on the principle of "like cures like", so patients are treated with diluted substances that would cause the same symptoms in a healthy person. More than 55,000 NHS patients are seen through four homoeopathic hospitals every year, while thousands more are treated by dually trained GPs. This costs the NHS an estimated £10m, a tiny fraction of the overall £80bn health budget. But this is too much for some.

drive from www.independent.co.uk