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Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Osteopaths should continue to use their professional judgement to assess and mitigate risks on a case-by-case basis. This will include being mindful of changes to public health guidance in response to COVID-19 and other health concerns.

Advice for patients wishing to see an osteopath 

In the context of COVID-19, if you are concerned about seeing an osteopath, or have questions about steps being taken to keep patients safe then you may wish to contact your osteopath in advance to discuss your concerns or queries.

Patients can use the GOsC Register Search facility to find an osteopath in their area.

Guidance for osteopathic practices

Osteopaths should continue to use their professional judgement to assess and mitigate risks on a case-by-case basis. This will include being mindful of changes to public health guidance in response to COVID-19 and other health concerns.

Masks continue to be strongly recommended in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The requirement for masks in healthcare settings in England and Wales was removed in May 2022 as part of the withdrawal of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) guidance on infection prevention and control for respiratory infections in health and care settings for winter 2021-22. Even with the withdrawal of the UKHSA, osteopaths may choose to continue to utilise masks or other PPE in response to their own risk assessments as a general policy, or on a case-by-case basis

Read the latest UKHSA Guidance for management of healthcare staff with symptoms of a respiratory infection, or testing positive for COVID. The main changes in the most recent update (31 March 2023) are:

  • most healthcare staff who have symptoms of a respiratory infection are no longer asked to test for COVID-19
  • healthcare staff who test positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to have two negative lateral flow tests for COVID-19 before they return to work
  • healthcare staff whose job primarily involves providing direct care to inpatients who are severely immunosuppressed, such as those working in inpatient areas for solid organ, stem cell or bone marrow transplant or haemato-oncology patients, should take a lateral flow test if they develop symptoms of a respiratory infection, in line with locally decided protocols
  • healthcare staff whose job primarily involves providing direct care to inpatients who are severely immunosuppressed and who have a positive COVID-19 test should return to work in line with locally decided protocols

Osteopaths should continue to exercise their professional judgement as to how they manage their practice in the context of COVID-19 and to meet the Osteopathic Practice Standards.

Infection control guidance:

Vaccinations: Osteopaths are required to work within the framework of the Osteopathic Practice Standards and should ensure that discussions with patients about vaccines are based upon credible and legitimate sources of public health information such as the NHS website or the MHRA website. Read more on vaccinations.

Remote consultations: On 2 April 2020, we published a statement on remote consultations.

Advertising claims: We have published a statement which warns osteopaths not to make false coronavirus claims in their advertising.

Regulation updates

On 5 August 2020, we published an interim remote hearings protocol and a practice note on questioning witnesses.

On 12 June 2020, we published an updated statement on fitness to practise activities highlighting that patient safety remains the key priority.   

On 3 March 2020, we published a joint statement with the other health and care professional regulators across the UK on how we will continue to regulate in light of novel coronavirus. 

Allied Health Professionals

On 7 December 2020, the Chief Allied Health Professions Officers jointly issued a statement further supporting allied health professionals as they tackle COVID-19.

On 19 March 2020 the Chief Allied Health Professions Officers jointly published a statement on supporting allied health professionals and allied health professional support workers during the COVID-19 epidemic in the UK.

Osteopathic educational providers

On 20 March 2020, we published a COVID-19 statement to Osteopathic educational providers to outline our position.

Communications to the profession

We have received a large number of queries which we have responded to individually. You can see the answers to the main questions here:

During the height of the COVID-19 period, in addition to the news items we published and the updates we made to this page and on social media, we were in touch with osteopaths directly in response to email or phone enquiries. Additionally, we were in contact with osteopaths through the following:

We also received a petition about registration fees from a number of osteopaths and this was our response.

If you need to get in touch

If you have any queries, please email: covid19@osteopathy.org.uk. 

We are committed to ensuring a safe and inclusive workspace for all our visitors and our staff. Our office meetings policy sets out how we do this in relation to meetings that take place at Osteopathy House.

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