How we check and assure education and training
We work together with osteopathic education providers to ensure they deliver high quality education and training, and safe, good quality osteopathic care for patients.
We use a range of methods to ensure that only graduates meeting the Osteopathic Practice Standards are awarded a recognised qualification. These include:
- Regular review visits to providers of osteopathic education – usually these occur every four to five years.
- Each education provider provides an annual report with key information that enables us to ensure that standards continue to be effectively delivered in between review visits. This involves feedback from patients, students and staff and reports from external examiners.
- Regular monitoring of any conditions attached to programmes or recommendations that come from reviews or annual reports.
- A requirement that education providers report any key changes to programmes or how these are delivered.
- Processes for collaborating with the education sector to identify and share good practice.
- Regular communication between GOsC and osteopathic education providers.
- A process for dealing with concerns about the delivery of osteopathic education.
We also have extensive powers, set out in legislation, to inspect and require information from providers.
Our Quality Assurance handbook explains in detail our approach to the quality assurance of osteopathic education and training, including:
- the roles and responsibilities within quality assurance
- the quality assurance process
- details of initial recognition, renewal and monitoring visits
- the annual reporting process
Read our Quality Assurance handbook.
Applying for recognition of a new qualification
For existing providers looking to deliver a new programme, or for new providers planning to deliver an osteopathy programme for the first time, please complete and submit the GOsC Initial RQ Application form. For further information contact the Professional Standards team on education@osteopathy.org.uk
Notification of a change to a Recognised Qualification
Education providers must inform the GOsC of any change, or proposed change, to a course that would have a potential or actual impact on the delivery of the Osteopathic Practice Standards, maintaining patient safety and public protection. The process a provider should follow is set out in the document Recognised Qualifications: notification of change process form, and the provider should inform the GOsC of the changes using the form and send the completed form to education@osteopathy.org.uk.
International students and osteopathic education
To enrol students requiring a visa to study in the UK, education providers in the UK are required to obtain a Tier 4 licence. Further information for Tier 4 sponsors is available from the government website. Further information for those wishing to study on a Tier 4 student visa can be found on the UK Government website.
The Quality Assurance Process and visitor reports
This quality assurance (QA) of pre-registration education ensures that students who enter the Register can demonstrate that they are able to meet the Osteopathic Practice Standards (OPS).
The quality assurance of osteopathic education is a key statutory function. It ensures that the integrity of the Register is maintained by making sure that graduates have the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to practise as osteopaths.
Our approach is a relational one – collaborating with the sector to promote good practice, and to support the meeting of standards. In this way, we aim to ensure that our organisational values are reflected in our quality assurance of education – these are to be:
- Collaborative
- Respectful
- Evidence informed
- Influential
The role of Visitors
Visitors are independent individuals appointed by the GOsC who play an important role in our quality assurance process.
Visitors are appointed to assess osteopathic education programmes and provide independent advice and recommendations regarding whether programmes meet the Standards for Education and Training and other regulatory requirements.
Our Visitor pool includes both Osteopathic Visitors, who bring professional expertise and educational experience, and Lay Visitors, who provide an independent public perspective.
All Visitors receive training to support their role and are required to declare any conflicts of interest before participating in review activity.
Visitors form an essential part of the Visit team for Recongnised Qualification review visits.
During a review, Visitors will carry out activities such as:
- reviewing documentation and evidence submitted by education providers.
- meeting with institutional leaders, programme teams, students, patients and other stakeholders.
- visiting and observing teaching and clinical facilities.
- exploring how programmes meet the Standards for Education and Training and Graduate Outcomes.
Following a review, Visitors prepare a report setting out their findings and recommendations.
Visitor reports
Visitor reports provide an independent assessment of the programme being reviewed. Reports identify:
- areas of good practice.
- recommendations for improvement.
- areas requiring further development.
- conditions that must be met before recognition can be granted or continued.
Visitor reports are considered by the Policy and Education Committee, which makes decisions regarding recognition and any associated requirements.
Our visitors
Dr Brian McKenna is an osteopath & educator based in Wales. He has over two decades of experience spanning clinical practice, higher education, professional regulation, and institutional leadership.
Brian graduated in Osteopathy in 2001 and subsequently completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic and Clinical Education and a Professional Doctorate in Osteopathy
Brian was a clinic tutor, module lead and year lead at Swansea University between 2010 and 2015, a senior lecturer at the College of Osteopaths at the University of Staffordshire between 2015 and 2018 and was principle of the London College of Osteopathic Medicine between 2019 and 2022.
He has maintained a long-standing commitment to professional regulation, serving on multiple occasions between 2002 and 2016 as a member of council, the education, audit, and research strategy committees. He currently works in private practice in Cardiff, undertakes quality assurance visiting for the GOsC and is an educational consultant for Liverpool John Moores University.
With more than 30 years’ experience in higher education across three institutions, Sue has worked within both London-based and regional universities, as well as within an OEI. Her extensive experience includes leading teacher education inspections against the Ofsted framework and overseeing quality assurance activities within the osteopathic education sector.
While working with the BCNO Group, Sue was responsible for managing Recognised Qualification reviews and annual quality assurance reporting to the GOsC, partner universities and the Office for Students. She has significant expertise in quality assurance, regulatory compliance and educational governance within higher education.
Sue serves a lay visitor, bringing substantial experience of higher education quality assurance and the osteopathy sector. Sue also previously acted as a lay visitor for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, contributing to the quality assurance of nursing and midwifery education programmes.
Now working independently as a freelancer, she also contributes to the work of an educational charity that supports young people from underrepresented backgrounds in accessing higher education.
Steven Vogel is Professor of Musculoskeletal Health and Care at Health Sciences University (HSU). He brings over three decades of experience in osteopathic practice, clinical research, and higher education leadership. He is a practising osteopath and maintains a very small private practice alongside his academic role. His education experience has included osteopathic curriculum review, design and chairing validation events across a number of subject areas.
His research activity centres on musculoskeletal pain, psychosocial factors in clinical practice, patient safety, and evidence synthesis. He has led and contributed to research supported by a range of funders including the NIHR, Versus Arthritis, the General Osteopathic Council, and the Osteopathic Foundation. He has supervised doctoral students to completion and continues to supervise PhD students at HSU, where he also chairs the Institutional Research Ethics Committee, delivers research related teaching and continuing professional development across a range of professions.
Prior to his current appointment, Steven held the position of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University College of Osteopathy from 2008 to 2025.
Steven is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine (Elsevier) and a member of the editorial board of Chiropractic and Manual Therapies. He is a committee member of the Osteopathic Foundation, a grant-awarding charitable organisation, and serves as a member of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Research Advisory Committee for Allied Health Professions and the NIHR South West Central Regional Research Delivery Network Stakeholder Group.
Until 2025, he served as President and Chair of Trustees of the Society for Back Pain Research, and as a Member and Trustee of the United Kingdom Spine Societies Board. He remains on the Society’s executive committee as Past President. He previously served as a Quality Reviewer for GOsC Education Institutions Quality Assurance, working with Mott McDonald between 2022 and 2025. His broader professional contributions include membership of NICE guideline development groups for low back pain (2007–2009 and 2014–2016), participation in the WHO Expert Review Team for the management of chronic primary low back pain (2021–2023), and membership of the IFOMPT international cervical framework development team (2017–2023).
Sandra has thirty years’ experience in education, ranging from class teaching, middle and senior leadership through to inspection. She has worked in school development in the UK with headteachers and school governors as an education challenge partner supporting them in their self-evaluation and to align their school improvement to the regulatory body’s inspection framework. She has extensive experience in mentoring, coaching and student induction. In international schools she has undertaken inspections across a range of curricula, working with an international team to assess from pre-school to tertiary, identifying strengths and areas for development, supporting their next steps in planning in order to raise and maintain standards.
As an NMC QA lay visitor she undertook numerous conjoint approval events for pre-registration nursing, midwifery and nursing associates and post-registration specialist nursing qualifications making recommendations for the NMC alongside university colleagues. Additionally, she undertook NMC listening events, monitoring visits and extraordinary reviews assessing standards of theory and practice provision for students.
As an RQ visitor for the GOsC, Sandra applies her skills and experience of observation, inspection and evaluation against educational frameworks to RQ events.