Services
of Professionally Regulated Osteopaths
A report on the supply of the services of professionally regulated
osteopaths in relation to restrictions on advertising.
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Summary
We were asked to investigate and report on the advertising
rules observed by regulated osteopaths and the effects of
their restrictions on the public interest.
There are 12 bodies representing osteopaths with rules that
govern advertising by their members. These range from the
General Council and Register of Osteopaths which includes
1,140 osteopaths practising in the United Kingdom, or about
three-quarters of all professionally regulated osteopaths,
to bodies with fewer than 100 members. All have rules which
limit the freedom of members to advertise and most of them,
including the GCRO, allow an osteopath to advertise only when
setting up a practice, when changing address or through directory
entries, all in approved forms.
The members of one body, the British Osteopathic Association,
are nearly all registered medical practitioners and as such
are bound by the rules of the General Medical Council. The
observance of these rules is currently the subject of a separate
inquiry by the Commission and we therefore do not discuss
them in this report.
We find observance of the rules of all the other 11 bodies
is against the public interest. The rules restrict competition
within the profession and, by limiting the amount of information
available to the public, hamper the prospective patient in
making an informed choice between osteopaths. These effects
are not outweighed by benefits from the rules in protecting
the patient or in maintaining
the reputation of the profession, nor do we consider that
the relaxation of the restrictions will have a significant
effect on moves to unify the profession.
We have recommended that the rules of these bodies should
be no longer observed. We have suggested that the 11 bodies
should consider the adoption of rules avoiding the detrimental
effects we identified. We consider that the broad principles
underlying any new rules should be that such advertisements
should be in accordance with the principles of the British
Code of Advertising Practice, should contain nothing which
would reasonably be regarded as likely to bring the profession
into disrepute, and should not be such as to abuse the trust
of potential patients or exploit their lack of knowledge.
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