Ensuring rehabilitation leadership in the new NHS landscape

The importance of Allied Health Professional Lead roles in Integrated Care Boards

We have co-authored a letter as members of the Community Rehabilitation Alliance urging CEOs of Integrated Care Boards to recognise the importance and value of Allied Health Professional Lead roles.

The text of the letter is below:

As Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England navigate the challenging terrain of restructure and financial constraint, the Community Rehabilitation Alliance is writing to urge you to retain and strengthen your strategic leadership for rehabilitation. 

As an alliance of more than 65 charities and professional bodies representing people with lived experience and those delivering health and social care, we are keen to support you in delivering the ambitions of the forthcoming 10-year plan – particularly around prevention, personalised care, community-based services and tackling health inequalities. 

Strengthening rehabilitation is essential to achieving these goals and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the NHS. To achieve shared goals such as reducing waiting lists, improving patient flow, preventing avoidable admissions, and relieving pressure on general practice, rehabilitation must play a central role. 

Appointing a strategic lead for rehabilitation is a key enabler of the shift towards community-based care that underpins integrated care systems and supports the NHS’s recovery ambitions. 

Rehabilitation directly supports strategic commissioning, population health, and efforts to reduce health inequalities – core priorities set out in the latest ICB blueprint and central to the 10-year plan. Its impact spans the system – from schools and patients’ homes to emergency departments and care homes – but depends on leadership that can commission, connect and improve services across place and neighbourhood. 

We recognise that many ICBs already have Allied Health Professional (AHP) Lead roles in place. These roles have been critical to progressing rehabilitation pathways and leading workforce transformation. Where they exist, they should be retained and empowered to shape the future of community-based, person-centred care. Where they do not, we urge ICBs to consider the value they bring and the opportunity they represent. 

The Community Rehabilitation Alliance believes that every ICB should have a designated senior leader with responsibility for rehabilitation – someone with the remit to coordinate services across community, mental health, discharge, intermediate care, and long-term conditions, and to lead efforts to reduce inequalities and improve healthy life expectancy. 

Rehabilitation is not an optional add-on – it is a foundation of recovery, independence, and the sustainability of the health and social care system. Ensuring strategic leadership for rehabilitation now will deliver long-term value and impact. 

We would welcome the opportunity to discuss how the Community Rehabilitation Alliance can support you in developing this leadership locally. 

Yours sincerely, Community Rehabilitation Alliance members