Increasingly both patients and healthcare professionals are moving around the European Union to live and work. Standards of osteopathic care vary across Europe, which has brought a need for greater patient protection through proper regulation.
For this reason, the GOsC helped to create the Forum for Osteopathic Regulation in Europe (FORE). This promotes best practice and helps develop regulatory mechanisms so that patients can have confidence in osteopathic care wherever they are in Europe. The Forum’s ultimate goal is to develop throughout Europe the same high standards of education, training and practice that the GOsC maintains in the UK.
The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) is the recognised authority within Europe for standardisation. National member organisations of CEN have voted in favour of creating a Project Committee to develop a European Standard for services of osteopaths.
Standards of osteopathic care vary across Europe, which has created a need for greater patient protection through effective regulation and high standards of treatment. This project, to be led and paid for by members of FORE and the European Federation of Osteopaths (www.efo.eu), will start in early 2012 and last up to three years at an estimated cost of 12,000 Euros per year.
For further information see The Osteopath, December 2011/January 2012 p. 15.
The GOsC also works closely with the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe (AURE), an organisation that campaigns in the interests of patients for better healthcare standards across the European Union.
We work with institutions and organisations elsewhere in the world to set high standards. We are working towards mutual recognition of qualifications with colleagues in Australia and New Zealand. The World Health Organisation consults us about training and safety in osteopathy and we are involved in developing basic training guidelines around the world.
A first ever international forum for osteopathy regulators took place in Potsdam in September 2011. The forum was part of a programme of international meetings on osteopathy, osteopathic education and regulation, organised by the Osteopathic International Alliance (OIA) and hosted by the German associations of osteopaths and osteopathic physicians.
The GOsC was represented at the forum by Tim Walker, Chief Executive, one of 36 participants from 16 countries either already regulating osteopathy or seeking to establish a statutory regulator. Representatives of the British Osteopathic Association also attended the forum.
It is hoped that the forum will become an annual event which will take place at the same time as the OIA’s Annual General Meeting, which brings together representatives from osteopathic organisations who work together to advance the philosophy and practice of osteopathic medicine and osteopathy worldwide.
For further information see the report in The Osteopath, December 2011/January 2012, p.14.