What we do

The National Institute of Medical Herbalists is the United Kingdom’s leading professional body and voluntary regulator of herbal practitioners. The organisation has a long and illustrious history. It was first established as the National Association of Medical Herbalists in 1864 by a group of herbalists from the north of England. Today the Institute has members throughout the United Kingdom and internationally.

The Institute promotes the benefits, the efficacy and the safe use of herbal medicine.  Our members treat thousands of patients every year. By choosing one of our members as your herbal medicine practitioner you can be confident of their high standards of training and professional conduct.

Our key activities:

• Maintaining a Register of individual members.
• Setting the profession’s educational standards.
• Running an accreditation system for training establishments.
• Maintaining mandatory programmes of professional development.
• Providing codes of conduct, ethics and practice.
• Operating complaints and disciplinary procedures.
• Representing the profession, patients and the public through participation in external processes such as regulation of the profession and herbal medicine.
• Ensuring that all NIMH Members have professional indemnity, public liability and medical malpractice insurance.
• Operating a mandatory comprehensive block insurance scheme.