§ Mr. GaleTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many members of the General Osteopathic Council have been drawn from(a) the General Council of Registered Osteopaths, (b) the College of Osteopaths, (c) the Guild of Osteopaths, (d) the London Counties and Shires Physicians, (e) the SMAE Institute, (f) the British and European Osteopaths Association and (g) the NTOS; how the members of the council were chosen and by whom; and if he will make a statement. [121105]
§ Yvette Cooper[holding answer 8 May 2000]: All members of the current General Osteopathic Council have been appointed by the Privy Council in accordance with our adopted policy on public appointments. Members have been chosen on the basis of individual merit and particularly for their ability to secure and maintain the highest standards of training, clinical practice and professional conduct. Professional members of the General Osteopathic Council do not represent any individual osteopathic body or training institution but act as ambassadors for the whole of the osteopathic profession.
Following legal advice, nominations for each professional place on the Council have been sought from all bodies known to have a representative function for osteopaths. For the initial membership selection exercise, these were the bodies identified by the King's Fund 461W Working Party on Osteopathy (whose report in 1991 provided the basis of the Osteopaths Act 1993) and known still to be in existence. The bodies were:
- The British Osteopathic Association
- The British and European Osteopathic Association
- The College of Osteopaths Practitioners Association and Register The General Council and Register of Osteopaths
- The Guild of Osteopaths
- The Natural Therapeutic and Osteopathic Society and Register.
The King's Fund Working Party drew its list from a report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the Services of professionally regulated osteopaths (1989).
The claims to have a representative function of bodies which have come forward since the initial selection exercise have been considered on a case by case basis. The London Counties and Shires Physicians has not made any claims to Government to represent osteopaths. Nominations have not been accepted from the SMAE Institute on the basis that it is considered to be a training establishment and not a representative body. Nominations have, however, been accepted from the newly formed British Osteopathic Association and the General Osteopathic Council itself.