The power of placebo

Many nurse prescribers work in the community, and all community nurses will be used to conventional drug treatments and probably, the offering of lifestyle advice as well. However, there may be many patients in their caseloads who are receiving placebo pills as part of their treatment, of course, without their awareness.

There is controversy surrounding placebo prescription and, in 2017, NHS England recommended that GPs stop prescribing homeopathy owing to a lack of robust evidence to support its use (NHS England, 2017). This was followed by a decision in 2018 by The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine to stop providing homeopathic therapies funded by the NHS (Pattenden, 2018). Evidence demonstrates, however, that placebos are effective (Locher et al, 2017), particularly for treating conditions such as osteoarthritis where other ‘best-practice’ treatments such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with harmful side effects (Howick et al, 2013).