Welcome to Impact

“People need choices and a variety of approaches to generating well being, alternative health is becoming more popular, but the main thing is that it empowers individuals to respect and be responsible for maintaining and improving their health. This scheme empowers the community…this has positive written all over it…”
Impact patient

Impact Integrated Medicine Partnership is a social enterprise which provides acupuncture, chiropractic and homeopathy in primary care settings. The integrated approach to healthcare combines the best of both conventional and complementary medicine to provide flexible, whole person care which results in lasting, sustainable improvements in physical and mental health. Since 2003 we have worked with patients and service users, GP practices and other primary health care and third sector organisations in some of the most deprived areas of Nottingham.

Two comprehensive evaluations of our service, conducted in 2006 and 2010, have demonstrated the effectiveness of these interventions in treating a range of short and long term conditions, particularly back pain, mental health conditions, musculoskeletal disorders, gynaecological complaints and chronic pain. Patients who have completed treatment subsequently visit their GP less often, report taking less medication, and have less need for referral to secondary care, thus saving NHS resources.

Listen to patients talk about their experiences:



Please select play button above to view video

Impact’s services are also a very popular choice. In 2002, local residents requested access to complementary therapies as part of a government inner city regeneration programme, and Impact was set up in response. During the three years of that programme, we had a waiting list as demand for our service was so high.

Around the same time, nine hundred local residents signed a petition requesting that the service be continued. In 2007, a group of Impact patients spent the day with BBC Radio Nottingham, and produced these moving audio clips, in which they recount their experiences of being treated at Impact. Please click here to visit the BBC website for more details. (Opens in a new window).

Nationally, the Impact team are recognised as skilled and experienced providers of integrated and complementary medicine, who work with a range of local and national organisations, including NHS Live, the General Chiropractic Council, Trent Improvement Network, and the Parliamentary Group for Integrated and Complementary Healthcare. In November 2006, the Impact team won the NHS Alliance Acorn Award for Integrated and Complementary Healthcare. We have considerable experience in service design and development, evaluation and service delivery. If you’d like to explore the value and effectiveness of these approaches further, we are very happy to offer you our professional skills and expertise, to ensure that many more patients can benefit.

| ITN NHS Alliance Acorn Awards coverage:



. Please select play button above to view video

“Of course, conventional health care provides the spine of the NHS. But complementary treatment is increasingly adding valuable benefits and choices for people…The integrated approach is patient-centred, may be more effective and could save precious health service resources…It is a question of being open-minded about each others’ abilities and perspectives. Ultimately this will be driven by the patients. We all want the best of all worlds, combining the benefits of both complementary and conventional NHS approaches to health ”
Rt Hon Peter Hain, MP 2004

Links

The British Holistic Medical Association: www.bhma.org
NHS Alliance: www.nhsalliance.org
NHS Live: www.nhslive.nhs.uk
Trent Improvement Network: www.tin.nhs.uk
College of Medicine: www.collegeofmedicine.org.uk