People across Kent receiving treatment at one of only five homeopathic hospitals in the country will have to wave goodbye to the free service from next spring.

The West Kent Primary Care Trust has decided to withdraw NHS funding for homeopathy consultations and treatments from April next year.

Staff at the Tunbridge Wells Homeopathic Hospital, where most referrals and treatments are based, will now have to be deployed within the local health service.

The move has been blasted by both professionals within the homeopathic service and patients, who feel the PCT has ignored the large number of the hospital’s supporters.

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Homeopathy is a form of alternative therapy used in cases of chronic illness and infection where conventional medicine has failed to make a difference, such as eczema, allergies, fatigue, and IBS.

Treatment often involves ‘like with like’ therapy, using diluted natural substances that would normally produce the same symptoms of the illness being treated.

Dr James Thallon, the PCT's medical director said: "Patients who use homeopathy make up a tiny number of the patients who have complex long-term and probably incurable conditions.

"We appreciate that some people…will be disappointed by this decision. But ultimately it is the clear duty of PCTs to make best use of public money by commissioning clinically cost-effective care.

"There is not enough evidence of clinical effectiveness for us to continue to commission homeopathy."

One of the hospital's consultants, Dr Helmut Roniger, said: "Money didn't play much of a role in this decision - our service is very cheap, but the trust can’t understand how homeopathy works and doesn’t have enough 'evidence' in this evidence-based market to support it.

"Most medicine still practised today is non-evidence based. We really should not be depriving people of this cheap, effective and historic method of treatment."

There are five homeopathic hospitals in the UK, the largest being the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

Clinical director Dr Peter Fisher said: "The West Kent PCT really is going in the face of local opinion. I think they are under the mistaken impression that cutting the service is going to save money.

"But keeping many people with chronic problems going, without needing expensive operations and investigations, is a safe, effective and low cost form of treatment."

He added: "Of course homeopathy needs more research, but so do many areas of conventional medicine - without these NHS hospitals, this research won’t get done."

The PCT originally decided to withdraw funding for homeopathy – which costs the trust £200,000-a-year for 750 patients - last September, but the decision was challenged by patients through a judicial review which proved unsuccessful and led to the final decision being made last week.

Current patients will finish their treatment over the next eight months but the PCT will not pay for further routine homeopathic consultations or treatments after the end of March next year.