Health professionals, including (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, herbal practitioners etc) can contact ChiMAS for information on safety, potential interactions, adverse health effects or general background on the use of Chinese or Traditional medicine. The CHIMAS enquiry form (download either the PDF version or the Microsoft Word version) may be either faxed or emailed to us.
To ensure that we can give you the information you need, please give us as much relevant information as possible.
• If you need to know the ingredients of a patent medicine (pills, capsules or powders) we need a copy of the packaging and labels.
• If the patient has been given crude herbs, we will need a full sample of the herbal prescription and/or the written prescription.
• As we may need to get details of the prescription from the herbal practitioner, we require the permission of the patient to contact the practitioner.
Some case enquiries are complex, and we may need to contact you for clarification or further information so please ensure we have appropriate contact details. If you wish to discuss any question first we can be contacted by phone on 020 7188 0199.
You can use the form for general enquiries or those about safety, side effects, contraindications or suspected adverse health effects of any herbal medicines.
Return the form to:
ChiMAS, Medical Toxicology Information Services, Mary Sheridan House, Guy's Hospital, London SE1 9RT
fax: 020 7188 0700
The Commission on Human Medicines has requested reports of unexpected or unwanted health effects from herbal medicines.
Please indicate if you do not want us to forward any relevant reports to the CHM.
Some Useful Resources
· NHS Evidence – complementary and alternative medicine. A specialist library of good quality, relevant information on complementary medicine: www.library.nhs.uk/cam
· Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for guidance on safety and regulation: www.mhra.gov.uk
· Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine voluntary register for practitioners of Chinese medicine: www.rchm.co.uk
· Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine(UK) voluntary register for practitioners of Chinese medicine:www.atcm.co.uk
· European Herbal & Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association represents herbal and traditional medicine practitioners across Europe:www.ehpa.eu
· National Institute of Medical Herbalists voluntary register for phytotherapists: www.nimh.org.uk
These links are only included for the convenience of users of the ChiMAS website. Please note that ChiMAS and the Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust do not accept responsibility for the content of other sites and do not necessarily recommend the included organisations or sites.