Spinal Injuries Association Case Study

Pro bono Client Profile and Issue

The Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) is the national charity for spinal cord injured (SCI) people. It was founded by Baroness Masham of Ilton and fellow SCI people in 1974 and today has over 5000 SCI members.

The SIA represents the views of its membership on a wide range of issues and we recommended that they select one specific issue of prominent importance to members to ensure their lobbying activity remained focussed. After consulting the membership it was decided that the campaign would lead on health policy and, in particular, specialist care for SCI people delivered through Spinal Cord Injury Centres (SCICs).

The SIA won a year’s free public affairs consultancy support through our 2006 pro bono scheme.

Our Strategy

The Whitehouse Consultancy worked with the SIA to condense their concerns into a briefing paper and developed a series of headlines to focus attention on the key issues; that SCI care urgently needs modernising and that a national model should be developed to ensure minimum standards are met. Vitally, this action would save both lives and NHS costs.

We identified the Department of Health’s review of the commissioning of specialised services, announced in October 2005, as a vital opportunity. We therefore worked with the SIA to develop a programme of meetings with parliamentarians and officials to increase the organisation’s profile in Westminster and Whitehall and to drive home the need for change to the way SCIC care is funded and delivered.

Outcome

The SIA have secured valuable contacts across the public policy arena and built a base of support to back their campaign on improvements to SCI care.

When our pro bono support ends we will have maximised the opportunity of the specialised commissioning review and placed SCI care firmly on the agenda. We will also have ensured that the SIA are furnished to be able continue their lobbying activities in the future with a valuable range of resources, contacts and support.