Heavily diluted solutions are used in homeopathic remedies

Greater Glasgow Health Board is considering closing the in-patient wards at Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital as part of savings totalling �58m.

The hospital has been praised as a role model for combining conventional and alternative medicine within the NHS.

Doctors at the hospital said the move to help fund a modernisation programme would be a false economy.

The basic principle of homeopathy is that like cures like.

The treatment claims that an ailment can be cured by small quantities of substances which produce the same symptoms.

Modernisation drive

The Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital's cutting edge design is being used as a model for the new west of Scotland cancer centre.

It also leads the way in combining conventional medicine with homeopathy, claiming to be the only homeopathic unit in the UK to have in-patient beds, where the most complex of cases can be managed.

But Greater Glasgow Health Board said they may have to be closed in order to fund a large modernisation programme.

Doctors at the hospital believe that for many patients homeopathic treatments are the only alternative to expensive drugs, repeated GP visits and emergency admissions.