Patients in West Kent who receive homeopathy treatments will no longer have them provided free by the NHS.

The West Kent Primary Care Trust, which has been funding the treatments, has decided to withdraw NHS funding from April next year.

It is not yet known whether the decision will lead to the closure of the Tunbridge Wells Homeopathic Hospital, which is owned by a separate hospital trust.

The PCT originally decided to withdraw homeopathy funding last September but that decision was challenged by patients through a judicial review.

The review supported the PCT’s decision, but it decided to review the situation again, which led to Thursday’s decision.

Campaigners, who had called for homeopathy treatments to continue to be funded by the PCT, called the decision: "a sad day for patient choice in West Kent."

The West Kent board meeting, which took place in Gravesend also approved the detail of plans to move emergency and orthopaedic surgery from Maidstone Hospital to the Kent and Sussex in Tunbridge Wells.

It had asked for certain issues, including staffing of both hospital’s A&E units to be investigated.