Join the BCA for 2023
Our Promise
“To be there for you when you need us, providing practical tools and services, guidance for your practice and your business, day-to-day, as you develop professionally, and during times of difficulty.
We speak up in support of your profession, as part of patient-centred, mainstream healthcare.”
Make an Application for Membership with Insurance
Make an Application for Membership Only
The BCA’s Vision is for chiropractic to be integral to UK healthcare. To achieve this, we have been working tirelessly to create a home for chiropractors who put patients first.
We support our members in all aspects of their professional lives, allowing them to devote their energies to delivering patient-centred care.
Our defined patient-centred approach is what differentiates the BCA from other chiropractic professional associations in the UK. The leadership we demonstrate did not go unrecognised as at the end of 2022, the BCA was named The Best Professional Body of the Year at the prestigious Memcom Excellence Awards, acknowledging that our repositioning project has played a pivotal role in changing the healthcare landscape for the better.
The BCA has not only founded chiropractic in the UK as we now know it, but is continuing to develop the profession and achieve magnificent results year in, year out (more about which you can read below). This makes the Association a trusted source for chiropractors, but also patients and other stakeholders, who rely on us for:
- Business support
- Professional tools and services
- Professional learning and development
- Support and guidance
- Recognition within wider healthcare.
- Promoting and protecting ethical ways of working
- Sense of belonging
- Providing an inclusive, modern voice for chiropractic – aligned to wider healthcare
- Defining and sharing best practice through evidence and ethics
A year of progress for the profession!
We continued to roll out our brand repositioning during the year and we’re delighted to report to you the positive changes that we have seen in the last 12 months.
New Members
In 2022, we welcomed 20% more new members than in 2021. They have been telling us that what attracted them to the BCA is our excellent service offering, strongly stated Vision and Mission, and a real sense of belonging with strong values.
In the Healthcare Community
For the first time ever, the GCC recognised the BCA’s Chiropractic Awareness Week 2022 campaign, citing the patient-centred language and values we display, upholding us as best practice to patients. The GCC’s new education standards now includes words from our proposition: ‘evidence-informed’.
In the wider healthcare community, we’ve seen gains in our Vision to be integral to UK healthcare with chiropractors taking part in the multidisciplinary healthcare teams at the 2022 Commonwealth Games for the first time in the Games’ history. All 20 in attendance were BCA members.
The DVLA has included chiropractors as able to complete medical questionnaires for assessment regarding fitness to drive. Chiropractors were included alongside other healthcare professionals.
All of this strengthens our value-proposition and, most importantly, builds confidence in the profession from those who may have previously been sceptical. We are now able to increase this confidence further, with our newly launched Patient Charter. This will lay the ground for more work to promote BCA chiropractors as the best in the business in 2023.
Best in class member services
Chiropractors don’t have to join a professional association, but nearly 2000 chiropractors choose to be part of the BCA to connect, learn, network and share with others who value a patient-centred ethos.
Supporting chiropractors is in our DNA. We know how hard you work for your patients and throughout our 98 years of existence, we have gained unparalleled experience of chiropractic needs and intricacies within the health sector.
We know that many chiropractors choose us as their Association because BCA Insurance Services provide the most robust protection for chiropractors on the market, covering both claims by patients and insurance-backed defence costs at the GCC.
You can practice with confidence when backed by BCA Insurance Services, which is available exclusively to BCA members. BCA Insurance Services offer a bespoke complaint-handling service, where BCA members receive guidance from experienced, specialist insurance advisers to support and defend member interests. If you need further information about the BCA Insurance policy, please contact bcainsurance@lloydwhyte.com
See how BCA Insurance compares:
We have a team who can advise and guide members through their professional life, including:
Employment, HR and Health and Safety
Compliance support and advice from a specialist business helpline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Legal and Tax advice
Legal advice on business matters within UK law, and UK tax advice.
Access to Latest Research
Free subscription to the Research Review Service (RRS) with further discounts on RRS courses.
i-Refer
Free subscription to iRefer, an essential online reference tool, published by The Royal College of Radiologists, that provides up-to-date guidance on selecting the most appropriate imaging investigation for a range of clinical problems.
Discounts
A helping hand with the daily costs of clinical products and services, as well as regularly updated high street discounts.
BCA Events
Ran throughout the year, providing opportunities for our community to come together, often gaining valuable CPD hours while nurturing relationships that support members in their professional life. We have adapted our events schedule to include more CPD throughout the year and to deliver this through both online and in-person events.
Guides and Resources to Assist You in Your Professional Life.
We represent member and patient views where it really matters. Here are just a few examples of where and how we do this:
- We responded to the Department for Health and Social Care’s consultation on reforming professional regulation of healthcare professionals in the UK.
- We are a primary organisation consulted by the General Chiropractic Council when they seek to make changes.
- We work closely with the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) and recently signed a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, which outlines the impact of the cost of living crisis on people with MSK conditions and presents considerations for his tax and spending decisions.
As the largest professional association of chiropractors in the UK, the BCA is called upon to provide the voice of the profession in a variety of situations.
Since the launch of our new strategic brand position last year, we have tailored our approach to public relations and media coverage to align with our aims. Previously, our work with national and consumer media has been very successful in raising the profile of the BCA, our members and chiropractic. We have continued to target these news outlets but have, additionally, started working with healthcare media to showcase the chiropractic profession to our peers in the health community.
In 2022 our press work reached a minimum 7 million people through thought leadership (industry-related) and patient-centred articles/interviews and stories in the media.
The BCA is the only UK professional association which represents UK chiropractors at international level as a founding member of the World Federation of Chiropractic.
We care about the legitimacy and evidence-base of the chiropractic profession, which is why all members contribute to the Chiropractic Research Council. This contribution expands research capacity, supports researchers and produces valuable chiropractic-related research.
Committed to doing things properly
Our Association is led by a Board of elected BCA members, which epitomises our values of quality and decency. BCA ‘Full’ members elect our Board to ensure the individual member’s voice is at the heart of our work.
We encourage members to undertake the Royal College of Chiropractor’s PRT programme, completion of which also leads to being promoted to ‘Full’ BCA membership and entitles voting rights within our democratic structure.
What our members say about their BCA membership?
“Don’t know how we would have got through recent times without all your dedication and incredible commitment to your members and our patients. Thank you guys.“
“I look forward to the years ahead with the BCA.”
“Massive thank you. As a new grad, I couldn’t be happier to be part of an Association promoting and expressing this form of message and mission statement! It’s great to have so much pride in being part of this Association. Thank you to all of those involved!”
“Proud to be joining the BCA as a new graduate. Exciting times ahead!”
“Just what the profession needs to stand behind! A Vision we can all be proud of.”
“[The BCA’s Vision] is the Vision a lot of us have always had from before we even graduated, which is why we chose to be BCA members in the first place; none the less, such a clear declaration is wonderful to see. Great job you guys.”
BCA fees for 2023
The Board has reviewed the membership subscriptions and recommended no changes to the BCA element of the fee structure for 2023; fees will remain the same as for 2022.
The balance sheet for the BCA continues to be strong and provides sufficient reserves for up to 9-12 months’ operational activity, although it is now coming under pressure from inflation and supplier cost increases, and the negative investment environment which has been significantly affected by the war in Ukraine. The Board has decided to utilise reserves to ‘cushion’ the effects of the current economic climate on members who will inevitably be feeling the same ‘pinch’.
Despite our strong advocacy to Royal and Sun Alliance Ltd (RSA), with our broker Lloyd & Whyte Ltd, we have been informed that our insurance premium will be increasing for 2023. This is due to very high claims inflation costs, increasing reinsurance costs, availability of no-win/no-fee support to patients and delays in claims court hearings, all of which have impacted on insurer costs.
This increase will in effect return premiums to their 2020 levels. Due to the strong arguments we mounted, we had been able to sustain a 10% reduction over two consecutive years in a hard insurance market (post-pandemic), which has typically seen increases of 30-40% for medical malpractice policies over the same period.
So, although we will continue to press for lower premiums, we also have to acknowledge that we have been very successful in recent years, greatly outstripping market trends, and so must reluctantly accept that there is a degree of inevitability about this, in a period of high inflation, as we return to the status quo.
The membership period runs from 1 January to 31 December each year. For practising BCA membership categories there are several tiers of cost, depending on your year of graduation. (If you wish to join before 1st January 2023, please contact enquiries@chiropractic-uk.co.uk)
Join the home of chiropractors who put patients first
What do I need to do now?
If you would like to join the BCA for both Membership and Insurance, you can do so by clicking the button below and completing our membership and insurance application form.
Make an Application for Membership and Insurance
If you would like to join the BCA but retain your insurance elsewhere, you can join on a Member Only basis via the button below.
Make an Application for Membership Only
If you choose to pay by direct debit, payments are taken over 10 monthly instalments, starting in January, which helps you to spread the costs. There is no additional charge for this facility. Alternatively, you can pay by BACS in a single payment.
To become a Full, voting, member of the Association, one of the requirements for this is a successful completion of the PRT programme, run by the Royal College of Chiropractors.
If, however, you graduated at least five years ago and did not undertake the PRT programme at the time, there is currently a potential route to Full BCA membership for you as an experienced chiropractor. The BCA will need evidence that you have achieved the equivalent of the requirements of the current PRT programme.
If you wish to pursue this route, contact us on enquiries@chiropractic-uk.co.uk.
PRT or equivalence is completed, the name of the applicant is put forward to the next Annual General Meeting in order to be passed into Full Membership by the BCA membership.
The BCA offers free membership to Chiropractic Students.
Make an Application for Student Membership
For chiropractors not currently practising in the UK, we offer Associate Membership. This membership category does not include insurance; it is a ‘keeping-in-touch’ category of membership.
The costs of this membership are:
- Not practicing in the UK and based in the UK: £125
- Not practicing in the UK and based outside of the UK: £150.
Make an Application for Non-Practising UK or Overseas Membership
