Health Melas have become popular community events, featuring health information, entertainments and activities.
Welcome to the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing. The Forum is now based at Bolton University’s Centre for Research in Health and Wellbeing but it was originally founded in 2001 at the Gujarat Hindu Society (GHS) Centre in Preston. It was then known as the Lancashire Gujarat Health Users’ Forum but it changed its name in 2012 to reflect its growing national profile. It was established by health care professionals and users of regional health services to give people better access to appropriate, high quality health care services.
Our Timeline page provides more details of how the Forum has developed and grown.
Today, the aims of the Forum are:
- to improve awareness of the range of health services currently available;
- to encourage greater use of services;
- to increase participation of ethnic minority groups in the planning and delivery of health care and health care strategies;
- and to assist in raising the general standard of health of the ethnic communities by empowering them to adopt healthy life styles.
The Forum organises a series of Health Mela events, which are attended by representatives of key health care providers and public agencies. In addition, practitioners and advisors working in the fields of alternative medicine are also represented.