Hereford Osteopathic Centre, Belmont Road, ordered to remove 'misleading' advert

Hereford Osteopathic Centre on Belmont Road has been told that an advert on the 'Infants and Children' section of their website must not appear again in its previous form following a hearing by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The advert published in March 2017 stated: “Osteopaths are first-contact practitioners, trained to undertake an initial consultation with any patient, at any age. There are many ways in which parents express their concern for their children’s welfare. They often describe it in terms of symptoms or conditions such as inconsolable crying and distress, colic, reflux, unsettled child, poor feeding, wind, sleeping problems, glue ear, painful ears, breathing difficulties, nasal congestion, recurrent infections, poor concentration, disruptive behaviour, aggression, head pain, misshapen head, plagiocephaly, Down's syndrome."

An explanation further down the advertisement said that no scientific trials had taken place to demonstrate the effectiveness of osteopathy and that osteopathy does not claim to treat or prevent any adverse condition, disease, injury or ailment.

Nicholas Handoll, representing the Hereford practice said that the conditions listed on the page were examples that people had quoted to describe their children’s problems. He did not believe that the page would give viewers the impression that osteopathy could treat or alleviate these conditions.

However, the ASA concluded: "The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim: "There are many ways in which parents express concern for their children’s welfare, and subsequent reference to various symptoms and conditions, to mean that osteopathy could treat those problems.

"We noted that the page contained additional text stating that osteopathy did not treat conditions. However, we did not consider that this was sufficient to overcome the impression that the web page as a whole was likely to give to consumers."

They concluded that the 'implied efficacy claims had not been substantiated and were therefore misleading'.

The ASA told Mr Handoll not to state or imply that osteopathy was effective in treating health conditions unless they held robust evidence to substantiate the claims.

In response to the verdict Mr Handoll added: "The conditions mentioned are solely and entirely the words that parents have used to describe their concern for their children’s welfare when asking for an osteopathic opinion.

"Osteopathy does not treat medical conditions, rather osteopathy seeks to remove the problems which could give rise to the development of those medical conditions. I have offered to the ASA to entertain any reasonable wording they wish to make it abundantly clear that osteopathy does not treat conditions and does not claim to treat conditions and that there is indeed no scientific evidence that osteopathy treats medical conditions, but they have refused.

"I have been in practice in Herefordshire for over 45 years caring for people both locally and far away. Osteopathy is safe, far safer than conventional medicine, it’s about as safe as seeing your optician.

"The public needs to know the choices of care available to them. When patients say: 'She/He’s a different child' after weeks of screaming and fretfulness, 'Thank you for giving me my life back' six months after a whiplash road traffic accident, 'Thank you for getting me my driving licence back' after recurrent collapsing attacks every day for more than a year, people need to know."