The PSA publishes its review of the General Osteopathic Council’s performance for 2025/26

We have today published our annual performance review of the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC). During 2025/26, we monitored the GOsC’s performance against the Standards of Good Regulation (the Standards).

For this period, the GOsC has met 17 out of the 18 Standards. Our report explains how we made our decision. 

In 2024, we introduced a new approach to assessing regulators against our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Standard. In order to meet the Standard, regulators must assure us they are delivering the four high-level outcomes supported by our evidence matrix. The GOsC did not meet our EDI Standard this year because we did not have sufficient assurance that it was meeting one of the four outcomes that we require under our approach to this Standard. 

The GOsC demonstrates a clear commitment to EDI, with appropriate governance, strategies and guidance in place, and has made progress in embedding EDI across its regulatory functions. However, significant gaps remain in the completeness, analysis and use of its EDI data. The GOsC told us that its work to date has not shown unfairness in its regulatory processes and fitness to practise outcomes or disproportionality in its referrals, however, it has provided insufficient data collection and analysis to evidence this assessment. We therefore found that the GOsC had not met Outcome 3 for this Standard and, consequently, has not met the Standard overall. 

We note that the GOsC disagree with the panel’s decision that it has not met Standard 3. The GOsC has issued a statement setting out why they do not agree with the panel’s decision. You can read this statement on the GOsC’s website.

We are pleased to note that the GOsC has continued to meet all the other Standards and we are committed to working with them in the next review period as they undertake further work with the aim of meeting all 18 Standards in 2026/27.

You can find out more about the GOsC’s review in our full report. Find out more about how we review the regulators. 

The judgments we make against each Standard incorporate a range of evidence to form an overall picture of performance. Meeting a Standard means a regulator has demonstrated satisfactory performance in that area. It does not mean there is no room for improvement.

Our oversight does not stop when we publish our report. It is an ongoing, continuous process and, where we have identified areas for improvement, we pay particular attention to these as we continue to monitor the regulator’s performance.

ENDS

Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care

Contact: media@professionalstandards.org.uk