Our story
Our story begins in 1981 when Denis Haviland, a prominent industrialist who had benefited from healing, created the Confederation of Healing Organisations (CHO). His ambition was to see healing become more widely available and accepted, being offered by doctors and by the NHS. He formed the CHO with a number of founding organisations with the aim that it would become the recognised national body representing healers and healing, and a trusted voice of authority and insight to raise awareness of healing.
Early days
As the CHO evolved it achieved a number of key milestones that raised the public profile of healing throughout the UK and Europe and ensured its inclusion and importance in the House of Lords Complementary and Alternative Medicine Report in November 2000.
These include:
- Developing and promoting a code of conduct for healers in consultation with the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association and the Royal Colleges
- Establishing advanced training programmes for healers culminating in the launch of the CBQ (Competence Based Qualification) in Healing
- Instituting complaints and disciplinary procedures within its member organisations
- Establishing the principle of mandatory malpractice and liability insurance cover for healers
- Lobbying political and medical institutions
- Playing an instrumental role in successfully securing a change in policy to enable healers to work with patients under the supervision of their doctor
- Opening a dialogue with healers in Europe
Recent times
Building on these early achievements, the early 21st Century has seen the CHO join forces with UK Healers, the body set up to negotiate the formal regulation of Healing, and to establish national minimum standards for healers. Responsibility for the code of conduct, disciplinary procedures and training standards was passed to UK Healers.
Since 2011, the CHO and UK Healers have been recognised by the General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapies (GRCCT) as the Joint Lead Body/Knowledge Base for Healing. The combined membership of CHO and UK Healers are approved for admission to the National Register held by the GRCCT.
In March 2017, the CHO acquired the BRCP (British Register of Complementary Practitioners). During the negotiations it was uncovered that Michael Endacott was involved in the founding of both organisations. Endacott played an integral part in initiatives to develop a centralised approach to multi-discipline regulation and registration of complementary medical practitioners. Endacott was celebrated among the healing community for his unstinting optimism to unite natural healers, complementary medical practitioners and therapists, to develop an educational system that would promote good quality practice, thus the BRCP is a natural extension to the CHO.
In 2022, the CHO qualified for the Charity Excellence Framework Quality Mark.
40 years after it was founded, the CHO is now recognised as the leading charity advancing the practice of Healing: promoting its benefits as a recognised complementary therapy by providing education, research and information to a wider audience of Healing and healthcare practitioners and society as a whole.
We are proud of our story thus far and excited about our future. To find out how you can be part of it, why not get in touch via our Contact page?
