In the first year of the Institute of Osteopathy’s Annual Awards the OON committee is delighted to have been shortlisted into the top 3 regional groups in the UK.
The nomination submitted by Tom Bedford as one of his last duties as the active chairman, received praise from the iO’s judging panel, which included some of the leaders of the profession.
Although we represent a relatively small region, Oxfordshire is actually a very popular area for Osteopaths which has seen the number of Osteopaths in the county grow, making it the second most populated area outside London.
In 2013 when we re-established the previous regional group we looked at what our members wanted from a regional group, and soon established a strong committee to help achieve our newly found objectives. This happened to coincide with a collaboration between the GOsC (General Osteopathic Council) and the iO to form a series of national ODG’s (Osteopathic Development Groups) which covered some of those objectives as well. As a result we have mainly been involved in organising high quality CPD for our members, and an opportunity to network at a series of events of across the year. This includes 2 full day CPD sessions, and 6 evening seminars a year covering a variety of topics on a rotation between conceptual, academic, practical and professional.
We are also keeping an eye on the NHS situation with a specific focus on the AQP (Any qualified provider) status of the MSK (musculo-skeletal) bids for work that become available periodically through the CCG (clinical commissioning group). [apologies for all the 3 letter abbreviations!]
As a result of our shortlisting the OON committee are heading to London together and Tom and Summeara, Jim and Claire, and Jerry Draper Rodi (the incoming chairman) are all going to be attending, so we’re looking forward to seeing how we fair!