National Rehabilitation Centre Academy
Building the workforce for better rehabilitation care
This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to build a national centre of excellence for rehabilitation education. With Pears Foundation’s support, the NRC Academy will help strengthen the national rehabilitation workforce and ensure that more patients benefit from specialist, innovative and evidence-based interventions.Miriam Duffy, Director, National Rehabilitation Centre
Our funding for the NRC Academy and Pears Scholarship Programme is about ensuring that the expertise developed here can reach far beyond one centre, giving more healthcare professionals the skills they need and more patients access to excellent rehabilitation care.Sir Trevor Pears
Partner since: 2014
Funding invested: £4million
Project: NRC Training Academy
Capital: Defence and Medical Rehabilitation Centre
Rehabilitation helps people recover and regain independence following serious injury or illness. The UK has a strong reputation for rehabilitation research, but translating that knowledge into clinical practice requires a skilled and specialist workforce. The UK has significantly fewer rehabilitation specialists than comparable European countries, limiting access to the expertise that can help people achieve the best possible recovery.
Pears Foundation’s involvement in rehabilitation medicine began in 2014, when we became one of the original funders of the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre near Loughborough. Its defence facility, DMRC Stanford Hall, opened in 2018 and provides specialist rehabilitation for wounded, injured and sick Armed Forces personnel.
The ambition was always to create an NHS rehabilitation facility alongside the DMRC, enabling civilian healthcare to benefit from the expertise, research and innovation developed through military rehabilitation. The new 70-bed National Rehabilitation Centre brings these two centres of expertise together on the Stanford Hall estate, creating opportunities for collaboration and shared learning.
Building the specialist workforce needed to extend the benefits of rehabilitation across the NHS is an important part of that ambition. Pears Foundation has provided start-up funding for the NRC Academy, which will bring together clinical expertise, research and education to develop rehabilitation skills and knowledge across the country. Training will be delivered both at the NRC and through clinical and academic partners, enabling learning to reach professionals working in different settings.
Our funding also includes a Pears Scholarship Programme, supporting clinicians to learn from international centres of excellence and bring that knowledge back into rehabilitation services across the UK.
More than a decade after our initial investment in the DNRC, the opening of the National Rehabilitation Centre marks an important new stage in the partnership. By supporting the NRC Academy, we are helping ensure that investment in world-class facilities is matched by investment in the people who will deliver rehabilitation care.