The Community Rehabilitation Alliance in England is made up of more than 60 charities and professional bodies.
The Alliance is committed to improving commissioning, planning and delivery of rehabilitation.
Its priorities are:
- To gain political commitment to delivering universal access to rehabilitation to meet needs.
- To improve the quality of rehabilitation through new models, better data collection, planning, commissioning and delivery of services.
Alliance activities in England
The CRA is currently engaging with a range of key stakeholders, from UK Government, opposition political parties, NHS leaders, charities and professional bodies in its efforts to ensure that rehabilitation remains high on the healthcare agenda. A key success in the latter part of 2023 was the publication of the Intermediate Care Framework and new model for community rehabilitation, which strongly reflected the best practice standards created by the CRA.
In recent years, the alliance has lobbied government over its plans to ensure there is adequate workforce to deliver rehab needs. Following a letter to the former health secretary, Stephen Barclay in December 2022, the alliance met with the then health minister, Will Quince, which prompted an acknowledgement that rehab is as 'essential as medicines and surgery.'
The alliance, which is co-chaired and convened by the CSP, was founded in 2019 to make sure that the commitments to improve rehabilitation provision in the NHS long term plan were implemented.
In February 2020, after the elections in late 2019, we launched Live Well for Longer – a report produced with CRA partners about the importance of community rehabilitation to people’s lives – and we co-hosted a parliamentary event in Westminster with Sue Ryder and the Royal College of Occupational Therapists.
The CRA has successfully lobbied for the creation of a national lead on rehabilitation and was delighted when Jenny Keane was appointed to the newly created role of National Director of Rehabilitation.
The alliance is committed to working with NHS England as it develops a national rehabilitation strategy and continues to lobby for investment in community rehabilitation.
Working groups
The Community Rehabilitation Alliance in England currently has working groups that are active in the following areas:
- Political engagement
- Communications
- Major Conditions Strategy
- Promoting and enabling best practice in neuro-rehab
The Community Rehabilitation Alliance members
The CRA members include:
- Age UK
- Alzheimer's Society
- Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance
- Asthma + Lung UK
- Brainkind
- The British and Irish Association of Stroke Physicians
- British and Irish Orthoptic Society
- British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation
- British Association of Social Workers
- The British Association of Sport Rehabilitators
- British Chiropractic Association
- The British Dietetic Association
- British Geriatrics Society
- British Heart Foundation
- The British Psychological Society
- British Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine
- College of Paramedics
- Community Rehabilitation Research Network
- Community Therapists Network
- The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
- Chiltern Music Therapy
- DayOne Trauma Support
- Fifth Sense
- FitzRoy
- Headway – the Brain Injury Association
- ICUsteps
- INPA - Independent Neurorehabilitation Providers Alliance
- The Intensive Care Society
- Later Life Training
- Leonard Cheshire
- Limbless Association
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- Meningitis Research Foundation
- MS Society
- Muscular Dystrophy UK
- The National Care Forum
- National Orthopaedic Alliance
- National Voices
- The Neurological Alliance
- Nuffield Health
- Parkinson’s UK
- Person-Centred Neurosciences Society
- The Queen’s Nursing Institute
- Rehabilitation Workers Professional Network
- Royal College of Occupational Therapists
- Royal College of Physicians
- Royal College of Podiatry
- Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
- RNIB - Royal National Institute of Blind People
- Royal Osteoporosis Society
- Same You
- Taskforce for Lung Health
- The Society of Sports Therapists
- The Society for Research in Rehabilitation
- Spinal Injuries Association
- Stroke Association
- Sue Ryder
- Thomas Pocklington Trust
- ukactive
- UK Hospital at Home Society
- UKKA - UK Kidney Association
- The United Kingdom Brain Injury Forum
- UP – The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement
- Versus Arthritis
- Vocational Rehabilitation Association
Contact
If you have any questions or would like to find out further information about the CRA, please get in touch with the CRA team.
For communications queries relating to the alliance, please contact Tamsin Starr, strategic communications manager.