09/09/2025
🗣Having a voice🗣
I don't often post on social media, but today I got some important good news that I wanted to share with you.
As well as being an osteopath, I am a regional lead for osteopaths in Northern Ireland, gathering the views of osteopaths and our patients in NI, and representing them at a national level.
In the last couple of years, there has been a steady increase in the use of variations of the title "osteopath" or "osteopathic" by therapists who are not qualified as or registered as osteopaths. It has been my view, and the view of many osteopaths in NI, that this is not acceptable. It is deliberately misleading the public, riding on our good reputations, and the reputation of the profession as a whole, to their own benefit.
Sadly, this risks patient safety. A full-time four-year master's qualification can not be condensed into a few weekend courses. Osteopathy is not just a series of high velocity manipulation techniques, techniques that can be very dangerous if applied poorly or to a patient with certain risk factors.
I have been lobbying our professional body, The Institute of Osteopathy, for over a year now. They have heard what I and others have been saying and have, together with the General Osteopathic Council (our governing body) have started a consultation process to have the legal protections expanded to include a wider group of variations of the words Osteopath and Osteopathy.
Patients, doctors, physios or anyone at all is welcome to take part in this consultation process by completing the form below. It would be fantastic to be able to create more patient protection by changing the laws in Westminster.
https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/gosc/s32-consultation-questions
And finally, only those therapists found on the General Osteopathic Council's website are registered osteopaths. If they aren't on that list, they aren't osteopaths. Simple as that.
