During the mid-1980s Fr David Randall, who founded Cara, had been providing pastoral care for people living with HIV/AIDS in his West London parish of St Clement's, Notting Dale. In 1987 his bishop encouraged him to take a sabbatical year in the USA, working as a chaplain in a San Francisco hospital where there were many AIDS patients.
On his return to London in 1988 he started Cara with a launch meeting in St Stephen's hospital, Fulham Road, where he worked for 2 days a week on the Thomas Macaulay ward.
