Ethics and Ethical Standards for Osteopaths

Osteopathic care is physical. It often involves undressing, it can touch parts of the body patients feel vulnerable about, and it is usually delivered in private practice where the osteopath also runs a business. Those features put ethics at the centre of everyday osteopathy. This ethics course for osteopaths focuses on them: consent that is genuinely informed and continues through treatment, boundaries that are always clear, claims about treatment that are honest, and treatment plans that patients never feel pressured into.

The course follows the General Osteopathic Council's Osteopathic Practice Standards. It takes about two hours, uses osteopathic practice cases, and ends with a 15-question scenario quiz, a written reflective account and a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

For the GOsC's CPD scheme and how concerns are handled, see our GOsC regulator page.

• Registered osteopaths in private practice, multidisciplinary clinics and NHS settings
• Osteopaths who treat children, older people or patients with communication needs
• Osteopathy students preparing for registration
• Osteopaths who want to strengthen consent, chaperone and record-keeping habits as part of the communication and consent element of their CPD
• Osteopaths responding to a complaint or GOsC concern about consent, boundaries, communication or advertising

1. Ethics in osteopathic practice

Statutory regulation under the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the protected title, why touch, undressing and private practice make consent, boundaries and honesty central, and the GOsC's role.

2. Core ethical principles

Disclosing material risks and alternatives following Montgomery, including rare serious risks of cervical manipulation; offering care likely to help and avoiding dependence; screening for red flags, such as sudden severe neck pain with an unusual headache, and acting urgently; fairness and transparency about fees; and protecting patient data.

3. GOsC standards and guidance

The structure of the OPS, key behaviours (consent, referral, boundaries, candour and honest records), the CPD scheme, and how the Investigating Committee and the Professional Conduct or Health Committee consider concerns.

4. Integrity, advertising and the duty of candour

Being honest about likely benefit, advertising only what the evidence supports (the course uses a website claim to cure infant colic as an example of what the Advertising Standards Authority acts on), being candid when a patient reports chest pain after a thrust technique, and what records must include.

5. Patient-centred care and shared decision-making

Asking about preferences (for example a patient who prefers not to remove a headscarf), explaining what you are doing before and during treatment, agreeing treatment plans with goals, costs and review points, and safeguarding, including what to do when a patient discloses domestic abuse.

6. Professional boundaries

Explicit consent, privacy and chaperone offers for hands-on care, the prohibition on sexual or improper emotional relationships, avoiding financial exploitation and pressured packages, online contact, and responding firmly to inappropriate behaviour.

7. Breaches of ethical standards

Why consent, boundaries and communication are the most common themes in concerns, the range of consequences (ASA rulings, civil claims, criminal action and GOsC sanctions), and remediation through targeted learning and changed practice.

The OPS set out the standards of conduct and practice expected of every registered osteopath, grouped under four themes. The course teaches to them throughout. The current OPS on the GOsC's standards website take precedence over any course content.

Because the GOsC CPD scheme requires at least one CPD activity in communication and consent in each three-year cycle, osteopaths often take this course with that element in mind. Record it with your reflection, and check the scheme guidance for how self-directed learning is counted.

• About 2 CPD hours of self-directed learning, including the reflection and assessment, as stated in the course.
• Osteopathic practice cases, including a parent asking for her teenage son to be treated the same afternoon, a patient asked to undress without explanation, and a patient after eight sessions with little change.
• 15 scenario-based questions, pass mark 12 out of 15 (80%).
• A reflective account asking how you will change your consent process and how you will know it has improved. Answers are stored on your device only.
• A certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Consent and boundary concerns are among the most common reasons osteopaths come to the GOsC's attention. If that is your situation, this course is a sensible starting point, but it is not remediation on its own. The course's own answer to "what best demonstrates remediation after a consent concern?" is targeted learning plus a changed consent process plus evidence that the change has worked, such as patient feedback or an audit of your consent records.

1. Complete the course and note which sections relate directly to the concern.
2. Change your practice in ways you can show: a written consent explanation before undressing, routine chaperone offers, records that capture consent discussions.
3. Write a reflective statement in your own words with our reflective statement builder.
4. Consider the Insight course and the Reflective Practice course, and read our conduct and trust remediation pathway.

Get advice early from your indemnity provider, professional association or a solicitor. Healthcare Practise UK is independent, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the GOsC, and cannot predict any outcome.

The companion Osteopathic Practice Standards course covers professionalism across your career: indemnity, honest CPD, clinic systems, associate pressures and how to conduct yourself during an investigation. If a concern has been raised, the Conduct and Trust Pack adds trust, professionalism, complaint-handling, insight, reflection and remediation learning.

See every course in the course catalogue, or answer a few questions in Which course do I need?