About Arthritis Care

Arthritis Care provides information on arthritis to help people manage their condition, so they can make the right choices for themselves. Arthritis Care seeks to empower people with arthritis and explain to people what it means to have arthritis. The charity campaigns on relevant issues such as prescription drugs and transport and links together people who have arthritis for their mutual support.

The charity:

Arthritis Care offers a wide range of free services. These include:

• helplines, which are a vital resource used by around 1,000 people a month. Our helplines, providing practical and confidential support, are accredited with the Telephone Helplines Association Quality Standard

• training and self management courses, which equip people with the confidence and skills to manage their arthritis, free them from pain and dramatically improve their quality of life.

• information booklets and publications including our bi-monthly magazine, Arthritis News, which all help support the needs of people with arthritis

• support and relief from isolation, through our wide branch network, award winning website, young people’s project and our online forums. The charity also has offices throughout the UK’s regions and nations.

• campaigns, which give a voice to people with arthritis and campaign on relevant issues such as access to treatment and transport. The charity campaigns for greater awareness of the needs of people with arthritis and for improved services and an end to discrimination.

Arthritis Care works closely with health professionals and other arthritis organisations in the UK and internationally.

Our history

Arthritis Care was founded by Arthur Mainwaring Bowen, a solicitor, who at the age of 19 was diagnosed as having ankylosing sponsylitis, a painful and progressive rheumatic disease of the spine.

He conceived the idea of an association to ease the plight of people in a similar situation, but was persuaded that the scope of such an association should be extended to include all rheumatic diseases.

The British Rheumatic Association was founded in 1947 and formally inaugurated at the Mansion House in London on 17 June 1948.

On 1 December 1959, the name was changed to British Rheumatism and Arthritis Association.

In 1983 the name was changed again to the charity’s current name: Arthritis Care.