Merger of the Chiropractic Patients Association and the Royal College of Chiropractors

The Chiropractic Patients Association (CPA) is a patient-led organisation that has always had the best interests of chiropractic patients at its heart. It was registered as a charity in March 1989 (having previously existed as the Chiropractic Advancement Research and Education Trust Fund) in order to represent and support patients, providing them with information about chiropractic care and helping them with any queries. However, the CPA’s wider activities have always included raising awareness of the benefits of chiropractic care, supporting the education of chiropractic students and practitioners, and raising funds to support chiropractic research.

For the past 18 years, the CPA has worked closely with the Lay Partnership Group (LPG) of the Royal College of Chiropractors (RCC), pursuing similar goals and objectives and even sharing personnel. This has recently led to the CPA Trustees making the decision for the CPA to merge into the RCC and form a new patient committee within the RCC’s organisational structure. The Trustees of both the CPA and the RCC have undertaken appropriate due diligence and unanimously approved this merger, which is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2022.

This important development will improve administrative efficiency and ensure the patient-centred objectives of the CPA are sustainable in the long-term. It will also lead to a range of exciting developments and opportunities, including:

– Establishment of a larger and more representative national chiropractic patient forum

– New support materials for patients

– Greater opportunities for patient involvement in a range of activities including active input to consultations

– Support for the development of local patient groups

The new committee will take on responsibility for managing the Patient Partnership Quality Mark (PPQM), and assets transferred from the CPA will be ring-fenced to further the objectives that are currently common to both the CPA and the RCC, including financial support for research.

The CPA’s former Trustees will have an active role in the new patient committee, ensuring continuity in the pursuit of the CPA’s objectives but under the auspices, and with the administrative support, of the RCC. It is hoped that the CPA’s members, who are chiropractic patients, will remain associated with the new organisation; there will be no membership fees for these members to pay in the future, but many more resources to support them and more opportunities for them to have a say in issues that matter to them. A major objective of the new committee will be to grow the membership of this patient body.

Further information about how patients can become involved with the new patient committee will be disseminated shortly after the merger is complete.