Monitoring Report - General Osteopathic Council 2025/26

We have published our latest performance review for the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC). The report covers the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 and is one of our shorter monitoring reports.

Key statistics

• The GOsC regulates osteopaths across the United Kingdom
• There were 5,653 osteopaths on the register (as at 31 March 2026)

Key findings and areas for improvement

Standard 3 on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The GOsC did not meet our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (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.

Review of the Osteopathic Practice Standards

The GOsC launched a call for feedback on the Osteopathic Practice Standards (OPS) between January and March 2026 as part of a planned review. It has also gathered feedback from students and patients through focus groups and is setting up an independently chaired Collaborative OPS Review Reference Group made up of interested parties. The GOsC plans to publicly consult on a set of revised OPS from September 2026.

Legislation on Protection of Title

The GOsC held a public consultation this year on its plan to request amendments to the Osteopaths Act 1993. The consultation drew strong support for amending the Act to include terms like “osteopathic treatment” and “osteopathic manipulation.” Most respondents recognised the growing misuse of osteopathic terminology and were concerned about it. The GOsC has since written to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about the consultation outcomes and continues to work with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to address protection of title cases.