European Herbal & Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association

The EHTPA was established in 1993.The EHTPA is an umbrella body which represents professional associations of herbal/traditional medicine practitioners contributing variously western herbal medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, Ayurveda and traditional Tibetan medicine. The EHTPA is devoted to the development of herbal/traditional medicine, preserving and enhancing the legal basis of process across EU Members States and promoting best practice throughout the traditions.

Aims & Objectives of EHTPA

• The EHTPA exists to advance unity within the herbal profession, to promote the availability of professional herbal treatment and to boost standards of training and practice within the profession. It campaigns for the legalisation of professional herbal process throughout the EU as a speciality in its own right.
• A central aim of the EHTPA is to strengthen the creation of appropriate European legislation that ensures the continuing right of professional herbal practitioners to approach traditional herbal medicines. This aim is similarly to involve statutory regulation.
• The EHTPA seeks to develop minimum standards of training and competence for herbal practitioners of all herbal traditions, so that such practitioners may be identified as competent and able to process on an independent basis. To this end, it has developed an Accreditation Board that will determine these minimum standards of training and competence, attainment of which will be needed for full membership of the EHTPA by any herbal organisation. The EHTPA observes the work of the Accreditation Board as a mandatory stepping stone to statutory regulation. The EHTPA has agreed a Common-Core Curriculum which acts as an infrastructure on which to base herbal training and which will underpin the work of the Accreditation Board.
• The EHTPA aims to perform the common interests of its member organisations and to lobby on behalf of its member organisations in relation to the European Commission and Parliament, Governments of Member States, the European Medicines Evaluation Agency and the disparate Medicines Control Agencies of Member States, medical and complementary medicine organisations and the media.
• The EHTPA seeks to advance quality controls on native and imported medicinal herbs and commodities so that the public can be confident in the safety of prescribed herbal medicines. It campaigns for a wide range of herbal medicines to be lawfully available to qualified herbal practitioners. It seeks to maintain the right of herbal practitioners to arrange stock and dispense their own medicines.
• The EHTPA encourages its member Professional associations to establish ethical and professional norms for all practitioners.