Foot Health Practitioner vs. Podiatrist vs. Chiropodist — What's the Difference?

UK foot care sits across three tiers. Tier 1 is beauty/cosmetic pedicure — no treatment of skin or nail pathology, no protected title. Tier 2 is general foot care / Foot Health Practitioner (FHP) work — routine nail cutting, filing, and callus/corn reduction for the general public without acute pathology; 'Foot Health Practitioner' is not a legally protected title, and there is no statutory minimum qualification, though almost every client, insurer, and care home will expect to see recognised training. Tier 3 is clinical podiatry — diagnosis and treatment of foot disorders, disease, and deformity, including diabetic foot assessment; the titles 'podiatrist' and 'chiropodist' are legally protected under the Health Professions Order 2001, and only HCPC-registered practitioners may use them. Crucially, this is title protection, not activity protection — chiropodists and podiatrists have no reserved activities in England. That means the real boundary between Tier 2 and Tier 3 work is a matter of professional scope of practice and clinical risk, not a single bright-line law, and this is explicitly flagged in our research as needing professional confirmation before being treated as settled.