ARA is the largest group of organisations with a remit of UK self-regulation of acupuncture and associated modalities.  It is funded by its activities such as membership, education, training and accreditation.

Membership organisations can join as associate members without any fees or cost or as Full members who pay a small annual registration fee to gain access to the partner discounts and benefits. All members  are registered and kept up to date with current best practice and supported and represented to enhance their profession.  Training course providers will be supported in bringing their courses to a standard of excellence and can have their courses accredited by ARA.

We currently have 16 membership groups which represents the majority of the UK’s acupuncture groups and invite any others to contact us directly. ARA has been formed largely because the industry needs a central verified stakeholder group to advance acupuncture but also to act as a central place for clients and third parties such as healthcare insurance providers to find and verify practitioners. ARA brings transparency and clarity to all other organisations that have involvement with acupuncture and for the first time allows groups to use one agreed UK set of Codes of Professional Conduct and Safe Clinical Practice and shows at a glance, those who are qualified, skilled and insured on a central register for the UK which has never been accomplished before.

ARA has an Executive Working Board with representation from membership, education, the profession and other professionals who add their own expertise, passion and energy to give a well rounded, inclusive board.  In addition we have a member board made up of a representative from each member organisation. We also have a health, safety and standards board, an educational board as well as a student representative, International representative and specialist regional representatives for the four nations and Southern Ireland.

Our educational framework allows transparency to the public and Levels of Training are assessed against the Educational National Credit Framework which uses a skill level and also a certification length based on credits. All of our core acupuncturists practitioners have a minimum of Level 4 (equivalent to an HNC) Diplomas (minimum of 360 hours), with the majority holding a Level 5 (equivalent to a Foundation Degree) or level 6 Bachelor’s Degree.

Very few groups in Acupuncture carry out audits and the ones that do are usually using self-verification via check lists. This is not an audit as there is no true verification via proof of documentation and even statutory groups often only check that practitioners are carrying out their hours of Continued Professional Development Training (CPD) each year. Neither of these systems offer protection to the public in reality. ARA carries out true random audits across all the ARA member groups and checks via actual document and live verification which helps us to offer an unprecedented increased protection not offered elsewhere in the industry.

Our safety record is one of the best in the industry and far lower than other sectors, so much so that we are exempt from the requirement to be licensed in London Boroughs because of our safety record, and protective codes of conduct and safe practice. ARA practitioners are very safe and our malpractice claim figures of ARA practitioners using our insurance scheme in the past three years (2020-2023) is £0 showing an unbelievable safety record and reflects our practitioners understanding of patient care and treatments.