Homeopathy was described as a waste of money by the study’s lead author

Bad doctors are twice as likely to prescribe homeopathy, the first study of its kind has shown.

Doctors who offer patients the alternative remedy tend to do worst on scores for effective use of conventional medicines, analysis of data on all English GPs found.

Researchers believe that doctors who are attracted to homeopathy despite a lack of evidence may be generally less good at keeping up to date on treatment guidelines and safety alerts or be less willing to work with colleagues to improve.

Health chiefs have ordered GPs to stop using homeopathy in a cost-saving drive designed to cut out useless treatments. Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, called homeopathy “at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds”.

Homeopaths use extremely