Herbal Dispensary

Avicenna is  unique having run  a working dispensary for nearly 25 years and thus offers an outstanding service to both our patients and  in-house practitioners. Our Chinese herbs are sourced directly by us from reputable sources and individual herbal prescriptions are tailor-made on the premises by our fully qualified Chinese pharmacists. Herbs can be provided dried or decocted (ready-to-drink) and we also offer a bespoke range of associated products made on prescription.

Herbs can usually be collected from the clinic within 2-3 hours of your appointment or we can dispatch them to you by courier in the UK or abroad following an appointment at the clinic. The dispensing service is available to health professionals according to RCHM guide lines.

We specialise in pharmacognosy and have extensive experience in verifying the quality and identity of raw herbs. We offer a consultation service to outside practitioners with a view to helping to improve the quality of raw materials on sale in the West and to eradicate the use of substitutes.

Our Chinese Herbs

We keep a carefully selected permanent stock of over 450 authenticated herbs. We source the highest quality herbs available and refuse inferior stock. We do not sell pills of uncertain origin, nor stock endangered or prohibited species.

We specialise in pharmacognosy and have extensive experience in verifying the quality and identity of raw herbs. We offer a consultation service to outside practitioners aiming to improve the quality of raw materials on sale in the West and to eradicate the use of substitutes.

To guarantee the highest quality and authenticity of herbal ingredients we  buy - wherever possible -  directly from China from our own reputable and Chinese government approved suppliers.

We stock a large number of specially treated herbs - paochi - which dramatically alters their function and use. These herbs are treated in a variety of different ways (eg heat treated, infused in vinegar, wine or alcohol, cooked with salt , honey or oil) depending on their application.

Our Decoction service

We are amongst the very few clinics in Europe to offer a decoction service for our herbal prescriptions. In 2003 we introduced cutting edge machinery as used in Chinese hospitals, which enables us to prepare individual herbal prescriptions in liquid form that come in sealed, easy-to-use sachets.

This high pressure and temperature-controlled decoction method extracts much higher proportions of the active ingredients and makes taking herbs more effective, convenient and palatable as well as ensuring consistent quality of the product.

We also offer a bespoke pill making service. Pills are custom made on prescription using the high quality authenticated herbs from our own dispensary.

Read a more extensive interview with Mazin Al-Khafaji published in the RCHM Journal on our decoction service.