About the National Rehabilitation Centre and the DNRC programme:
The idea for a civilian (National Rehabilitation Centre) facility was fundamental to the concept of the DNRC programme from the outset.
Sharing expertise and facilities to mutual benefit between Defence medicine and the NHS is acknowledged to be a way to improve the quality of outcomes for people who have experienced serious injury and would benefit from sophisticated clinical rehabilitation.
Getting people back to a meaningful life and capability following serious injury is a major policy area in Government. It is acknowledged that return to work rates for people experiencing major trauma and serious injury in England lag behind rates achieved in other European countries as well as rates achieved in the Armed Forces.
There is planning permission for the National Rehabilitation Centre on a site 400m to the west of the Defence facility on the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate.
The National Rehabilitation Centre programme is being led by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, the formal NHS sponsor.
This facility would be something entirely new – a place where patients, innovation, expertise and the physical space combine to push boundaries beyond that achieved in the field of clinical rehabilitation to date. It should be viewed as a start-up and a flagship project in technology terms in the NHS transformation programme now underway. The intention is that it will pave the way for similar clinical centres across NHS England.
Under one roof it will: treat patients; train and educate significant numbers of staff in this field; and integrate industry, research and innovation in rehab to discover new practical solutions for patients. It is also clear that there will be international dimensions to the work of the NRC.
In the October 2018 Budget, Government earmarked £70M to cover the construction cost of the patient care element – the other 2 elements of education and training and research and development will be sourced elsewhere.
Co-located and working together, the Defence facility and the NHS (National) facility would share expertise, drive up standards, progress valuable research and potentially enable the field of rehabilitation medicine to progress to a whole new level.
Key to the DNRC Programme ambition is that the whole would achieve far more than the sum of the parts.
Read the introduction to the National Rehabilitation Centre leaflet and find out more at
www.thednrc.org.uk
The DNRC Programme is enabled by The Black Stork Charity – more details at:
https://www.theblackstorkcharity.org.uk/