Careers in homeopathy

Working in healthcare and helping others can be enormously fulfilling. Homeopathy is a rewarding and flexible career choice and you will see people with a wide range of health issues. The homeopath’s mission is to ‘find’ the person within, the one who is ‘running the show’ and, in doing so, the psychological, lifestyle, habits, interests and living environment will all be taken into consideration.

Typical activities as a homeopath include:

• Holding homeopathic consultations with your patients
• Analysing cases and prescribing homeopathic remedies
• Keeping up to date with homeopathic knowledge and advances
• Advising patients on treatment plans and discussing general healthcare issues
• Keeping detailed patient notes
• Referring patients to other healthcare practitioners as and when necessary
• Booking appointments, managing administration, finances and patient care
• Marketing yourself and promoting your practice

Most homeopaths work for themselves and choose their working hours. Many homeopaths work from home or create a dedicated homeopathy clinic in their house, others work in clinics with other alternative/complementary therapists. Some may also visit patients in their homes. A few work in GP surgeries. Conventional doctors who have undertaken further training in homeopathy also practice in the NHS, largely in the homeopathic hospitals.

Most homeopaths work between one and three days a week. As a self-employed homeopath, income depends on the hours you work and the number of patients you see. You would typically charge an hourly rate of between £40 and £100. Therefore if you charged £60 per patient and saw four patients per day, three days a week, 48 weeks of the year you would earn £34,000 before tax.

It’s worth bearing in mind that you only get paid per session, so when you are just starting out you might earn less than £6,000 per year. As your experience and reputation builds so will your income.

To be a homeopath you will need:

• An all consuming interest in people
• A desire to help others
• An interest in health, wellbeing and disease
• An ability for analytical thinking as well as using your intuition
• To foster an open and curious mind
• A working knowledge of biology and conventional medical treatments
• Good listening and communication skills
• The ability to build trust and rapport with patients
• The ability to remain calm under pressure
• Accurate record keeping skills
• Business skills to run your own practice.

If you would like to work in homeopathy, or would like to talk to someone about it, please contact us and one of our team will be happy to help.