Health Warning!
Check out the practitioner's qualifications
Both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine professional bodies are going through the process of negotiation with the government in order to becoming nationally regulated professions. Until such time (likely to be in about 2-3 years), the only guarantee of a identifying a properly qualified practitioner is to find out whether they belong to accrediting bodies such as the British Acupuncture Council for acupuncture or with the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine for Chinese Herbal medicine. Please confirm that any practitioner you are interested in being treated by is a member of an appropriate body by visiting the professional body's website and checking their list of names of accredited practitioners. These bodies ensure that members have trained at appropriate colleges which have had their courses accredited. Initial training to be an acupuncturist usually takes 3-4 years and to become a Chinese Herbalist takes another 2-3 years. Some colleges and universities run combined courses.
Control of permitted substances
Members of the RCHM are only permitted to prescribe herbs from companies who follow stringent safety and ethical rules. The herbs and formulae from these companies are tested for impurities and will not contain unacceptable additions such as western medicinals. These companies are only allowed to source herbs and pre-prepared formulae that do NOT contain a) animal products, b) endangered herbal species c) herbs that have been shown to be unacceptably toxic. Currently, minerals cannot be prescribed as a result of poor legislation (the argument being that minerals are not technically herbs, even though Chinese medicine practitioners have been using them safely for hundreds of years) which hopefully will be rectified in the not too distant future.