Osteopathy was founded in 1874 by Andrew Taylor Still in Kirksville, Missouri in the United States and was introduced to the United Kingdom in 1898 by J. Martin Littlejohn one of the early graduates from the American School of Osteopathy. A couple of years later the first osteopaths arrived from America and set up practice. In 1993 Parliament passed the Osteopaths Act to establish osteopathy as a self-regulated profession. In 2000 legislation came into effect requiring all osteopaths to be registered with the GOsC.
Today there are over 3000 UK registered osteopaths and over 30,000 consultations per working day.