Yes — online CPD counts fully toward your GOsC annual CPD requirement. The General Osteopathic Council does not specify that learning must be delivered in person. Online courses, webinars, recorded seminars, and structured e-learning are accepted on the same basis as face-to-face training, provided the learning is relevant to your practice and properly documented.
The more useful question is what makes online CPD genuinely worthwhile and how to document it in a way that demonstrates real engagement.
What the GOsC evaluates
The GOsC's approach to CPD is outcome-focused rather than format-focused. When assessing whether an activity qualifies, what matters is whether it involved genuine learning relevant to your osteopathic practice, whether the content was evidence-based, whether you can reflect on what you learned, and whether you have evidence of completion.
An online course that meets all of these criteria is as valid as a full-day in-person workshop. The format is incidental. The quality of the learning and the quality of your documentation are what count.
Understanding Provider Accreditation
When choosing online CPD, accreditation from an independent body is a meaningful quality signal. The GOsC does not formally accredit CPD providers — what exists is accreditation from independent organisations that review course content against established quality standards.
ManualCPD is accredited through The CPD Group (Provider #788442), an independent accreditation body. Courses from independently accredited providers come with certificates that reference the accrediting body, which gives your portfolio documentation additional clarity and credibility. Non-accredited courses can still qualify as CPD — but they require more detailed reflection to demonstrate quality and relevance, because the content has not been independently assessed.
Types of Online CPD for Osteopaths
On-demand courses are the most flexible format. You complete them at your own pace, which suits practitioners with busy clinical schedules. Good on-demand courses include assessment — typically multiple choice questions — and issue certificates on completion. For osteopaths, available on-demand content covers a wide range of clinical areas including musculoskeletal conditions, chronic pain, sports injury, and clinical communication.
Live webinars offer real-time engagement and the ability to put questions to a presenter. Many osteopathic professional bodies and independent CPD providers run webinar programmes throughout the year. Recordings are often made available afterwards for those who cannot attend live.
Recorded conference sessions and academic lectures give access to high-quality learning without the logistical and financial overhead of in-person attendance. These require deliberate engagement to constitute genuine CPD — passive viewing is not sufficient.
Documenting Online CPD
For each online course or webinar, your portfolio entry should include the course title and provider, the date completed, the duration, your certificate of completion, and a reflection. That reflection should describe what you set out to learn, what you took from the activity, and how it connects to your osteopathic practice.
The reflection does not need to be long. A focused paragraph is sufficient. What the GOsC is looking for — and what any quality assurance review will assess — is evidence that the learning was purposeful, not passive. A portfolio of certificates with no accompanying reflections is considerably weaker than one where each entry shows genuine engagement.
The portfolios that hold up best under scrutiny are the ones that tell a coherent story: a practitioner who identified areas for development, sought out learning that addressed them, and engaged with it thoughtfully. That is what CPD is for.