A chiropractor assesses how your joints, muscles and nervous system are working, and uses manual care, mostly delivered by hand, alongside plain explanation and advice. In the UK the title is protected by law: anyone practising as a chiropractor must be registered with the General Chiropractic Council, the statutory regulator.
That is the short answer. The longer answer is worth having, because the profession is often described either by its critics or by its most enthusiastic marketers, and neither description is much use to a person deciding whether to see one.
How is chiropractic regulated in the UK?
Chiropractic is regulated by statute. The Chiropractors Act 1994 established the General Chiropractic Council, and it is a criminal offence to describe yourself as a chiropractor without being on its register. The register is public. You can look any UK chiropractor up, including me, and check their registration before you book anything.
Registration is not a formality. It carries a code of practice, continuing professional development every year, and a fitness-to-practise process with teeth. When I say I am a regulated healthcare professional, that is what the sentence means: a named regulator, a public register, and rules I can be held to.
What training does a chiropractor have?
A GCC-accredited chiropractic degree, typically four to five years of full-time study, covering anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, and the manual work itself. Some routes are masters-level conversions for people who already hold a science degree. Mine was: I came to chiropractic from a research science background, converting at the University of Surrey and qualifying in 2001.
I mention that not because degrees are the point, but because it shapes the answer to this page’s question. What a chiropractor does, before anything else, is assess. The hands come second.
What actually happens when you see one?
Three things, in this order.
Assessment. A detailed history, then a physical examination: how you move, how you load, what is guarded, what is not. This is the longest part of a first visit and it should be. I have written separately about what happens at a first chiropractic appointment.
Explanation. What was found, in plain words, and what the chiropractor proposes to do about it. If you leave an appointment unable to say what the practitioner thinks is going on, something has gone wrong with the appointment.
Manual care. Adjustments, which are specific, controlled movements applied to joints, mostly by hand, along with soft-tissue work, mobilisation and advice on movement and daily life. Different chiropractors weight these differently, and there are distinct approaches within the profession. My own is described at the Elaris Method.
What does a chiropractor not do?
A chiropractor is not a medical doctor and does not prescribe medicines. A good one refers you on when what they find is outside their scope, and says so plainly.
You will also notice something missing from this page: a list of conditions. That is deliberate. UK advertising rules limit what chiropractors may claim, and in my view the rules point in the right direction. Whether care makes a difference in your case is not something a web page can promise. What a page can honestly do is describe the process, which is what this one has done, and what I have done at more length in how I work with pain that has not resolved.
How do you choose one?
Check the register. Then ask how they assess, and what happens if they conclude they are not the right person for you. The answer you want to hear is that they will tell you, and where possible tell you who might be. If you are local, where I practise has the practical detail; for the difference between the two professions people most often compare, see chiropractor or osteopath.
Steve Davison is a chiropractor registered with the General Chiropractic Council. He has been in practice since 2001. About Steve Davison.
Sources, checked 18/08/2026: Chiropractors Act 1994, legislation.gov.uk; General Chiropractic Council.