Alliance work in England

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

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 media and communications queries relating to the alliance, please contact Lauren Connors, Senior Media Officer.