General Osteopathic Council

Osteopathic
Practice
Standards

Osteopathic Practice Standards > A. Communication and patient partnership > A7. You must make sure your beliefs and values do not prejudice your patients’ care.

A7. You must make sure your beliefs and values do not prejudice your patients’ care.

  1. The same quality of service and care should be provided to all patients. It is illegal to refuse a service to someone on the grounds of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
  2. You should maintain a professional manner at all times, even where a personal incompatibility arises with a patient.
  3. You are not obliged to accept any individual as a patient (subject to the points raised in paragraph 1 above), but if having done so you feel you cannot continue to give them the good-quality care to which they are entitled, you may decline to continue treating them. In that case, you should try to refer them to another osteopath or healthcare professional where appropriate. Reasons for not accepting someone as a patient or declining to continue their care might arise where:
    1. they are or become aggressive
    2. they seem to lack confidence in the care you are providing
    3. they appear to have become inappropriately dependent on you.