National Osteopathy Week - Health in Action

24 - 30 June 2002

While Government embarks on an extensive training and recruitment drive to shore up the health service, the potential contribution of thousands of highly-trained primary healthcare practitioners has been largely overlooked.

The NHS is spending £300 million a year on agency nurses to plug gaps, whilst large sums of public money are being used to recruit medical staff from overseas. Current staff shortages are critical. Long-term Government plans include the training of 15,000 more GPs and consultants and 35,000 additional nurses, midwives and health visitors . 
 
The General Osteopathic Council will use National Osteopathy Week (24-30 June 2002) to draw attention to the enormous untapped resource that complementary therapies represent in primary healthcare provision. In any one year, osteopaths alone provide no fewer than 7 million sessions of treatment for patients .  
 
Osteopathy, the first complementary therapy recognised as a regulated primary healthcare profession, already succeeds in keeping an estimated 25,000 patients a day out of doctors’ surgeries and hospitals . The osteopath’s skills in patient assessment, differential diagnosis and manual therapeutics offer opportunities for costs savings.  
 
Treatment minimises dependency on drugs and the cost of treatment for side effects. It can also obviate the need for secondary referral, medical investigation and interventions. Speedy access time for acute patients averts the possibility of conditions becoming chronic. 
 
Cost savings to the health budget could be considerable, yet access to complementary care through the NHS is limited. The losers are the many patients who cannot afford to choose the care they want, to free up their GPs. Timely and appropriate preventative care would save the economy millions of lost workdays, and the benefits to older people of remaining active and independent cannot be underestimated. 
 
Osteopaths and other complementary practitioners can significantly help to reduce the pain, the NHS waiting lists, and pressure on hospital beds: average waiting times for treatment are currently just under 7 months ; 14% of those awaiting treatment experience a high level of pain, and 40% experience at least some pain.  
 
The goal of primary care has to be the promotion of good health. All resources available locally should be brought to bear: GPs and the wide range of practitioners working in primary care collaborating to achieve a more effective, integrated approach to patients’ wellbeing.  
 
A Parliamentary reception during National Osteopathy Week (24-30 June 2002) will launch a campaign to raise awareness of the osteopaths’ vital contribution to keeping the nation in action and off the NHS. 
 
_____________________________ 
References 
Department of Health Press Release: reference 2002/0192  
GOsC Snapshot Survey, November 2001 
Department of Health quarterly return (QFO1) 

National Osteopathy Week

June 5-11 2000

Something to celebrate for UK Osteopaths and their Patients

National Osteopathy Week (NOW), which runs from 5 to 11 June, marks the start of an on-going campaign by osteopaths to communicate the significance of their new statutory status to patient groups, GPs and other healthcare professionals in the community.

May brought in a fundamental change for osteopaths and their patients. In the past, anyone could set up and practice as an osteopath. Most practitioners undertook lengthy and rigorous training but, since there was no real way of keeping out the charlatans, prospective patients had to be wary.

Now, with the last key stages of the Osteopaths Act in place, it is a criminal offence for anyone to use the title 'osteopath'  has not undergone (or is in the process of undergoing) the rigorous process of statutory regulation with the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC).

In other words, the title 'osteopath' now says it all. As before, it means a skilled practitioner of manual medicine but it also now means registered with the statutory body (the GOsC), subject to strict ethical codes and disciplinary procedures and properly insured.

The registration process adopted by osteopaths is very much in line with what the Government wants other professional regulatory bodies to do. All osteopaths applying were assessed to ensure that they are clinically safe and competent. They had to complete a detailed Professional Profile and Portfolio, which assessed the applicant's clinical skills and the way which he or she practised osteopathy. If insufficient detail was given, the applicant would be interviewed and perhaps asked to undertake a test of clinical competence. Only those who could clearly demonstrate safety and competence have been registered.

GOsC Chairman Simon Fielding says, 'ensuring osteopaths are fit to be admitted to the register right at the outset has been a major investment by the profession. By completing the registration process, osteopaths have now put their clinical competence beyond doubt. This underlines the profession's commitment to patient safeguards and to high standards of osteopathic healthcare which, I am sure, will be recognised in increased public confidence'. 

During National Osteopathy Week, osteopaths will be continuing the campaign to spread the word in their own communities.

National Osteopathy Week

June 5-12, 2000 

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire will be featuring the practice and patients who visit it on the "Breakfast Show" on Tuesday June 6th. 

Mr John Lant will also be doing a “phone-in” on Thursday 8th at 12.30pm.  Do give him a ring on 01223 259696, where he will be pleased to answer your questions.  

 "You're Safe in our hands"    ....

National Osteopathy Week 1999
"You're Safe in our Hands"  say UK's Osteopaths

Patients have long recognised that osteopaths are highly skilled practitioners, with a caring approach and a professional ethos.  These qualities are now supported and defended by statutory regulation, for the benefit of the public and profession alike.

Osteopathy has always been a safe approach to treatment, exemplified by low rates available to practitioners for insurance cover.  Now, with Statutory Regulation becoming a reality, patients have important new safeguards and the profession can justifiably claim 'you're safe in our hands'.

Replacing all the previous voluntary registers, there is now only one regulatory body for osteopathy, the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC), which was established under an Act of Parliament.  The GOsC is evaluating all osteopaths individually to bring them onto a new Statutory Register. Already a thousand osteopaths have been registered at this halfway stage in the process.  By May 2000, all Registered Osteopaths throughout the UK will have gone through the rigorous evaluation process.  At this point, the Act will be brought fully into force and only those on the Statutory Register will by law be able to call themselves 'osteopaths'.

In the meantime, the GOsC has begun a process of accrediting courses of osteopathic education so that after May 2000 the only route onto the Statutory Register will be by means of a recognised qualification.

Osteopaths themselves campaigned for many years for legal recognition because they realised that, coupled with extensive training, it was the most effective way of protecting patients and of safeguarding the reputation of the profession.  Now, with Statutory Regulation, patients have similar assurances as when they see a doctor or dentist.

"Osteopaths take pains - to ensure you don't"

UK osteopaths give over six million patient consultations a year.  As a result of the greater awareness of the profession achieved through Statutory Regulation, patient numbers continue to increase (osteopathy is the first complementary system of medicine to achieve statutory recognition).

Osteopathy has long been recognised as a safe approach to treatment which is why practitioners, who work largely in private practice, receive the largest number of their patients by recommendation from existing patients within their communities.  It is also evidenced by the low cost of indemnity insurance available to osteopaths as a result of the excellent claims record of the profession.

That osteopathy is an effective and safe approach stems from the fact that osteopaths take time to understand and address the whole problem, treating each patient as an individual and planning the treatment accordingly. It is also non-invasive and is not dependent on drugs, so that side-effects are minimal.

As a result of many hours of clinical training - alongside a lengthy education in anatomy and biomedical sciences - osteopaths develop considerable skills in diagnosis, especially through touch (called palpation).  They use their hands both to investigate the underlying causes of pain and to carry out treatment using a variety of often very gentle manual techniques, carefully applied to avoid discomfort.

Your osteopath will take pains - to ensure you don't!

With the professional recognition accorded by Statutory Regulation, many osteopaths have begun to work with doctors to treat their NHS patients and it seems certain that osteopathy's safe and patient-centred approach will ensure a growing role in primary health care in the future.

Osteopaths' Advice for VDU and PC users 

         

  • Adopt a good posture, don't slouch, with feet flat on the floor or on a foot rest (not crossed for long periods)

  • Keep forearms in a horizontal position and wrists supported

  • Choose a good seat which is supportive in the lumbar curve

  • Organise your work to take frequent breaks from your routine so as to vary your posture

  • Osteopaths' advice on lifting and handling

  • Get help from others whenever needed

  • Keep back straight as possible and use legs, not back, to lift the weight

  • Bend from the knees and hips

  • Carry heavy objects as close to the body as possible

  • Avoid reaching for loads above shoulder height