The members of the Steering Group of the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing take great pleasure in announcing that our Chair, Professor Romesh Gupta OBE, has been invited to join the School of Medicine at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) as Honorary Professor.

NFHW acknowledges with gratitude the ever-increasing support of UCLan in our efforts to promote community involvement in health improvement. This new appointment is a very tangible symbol of our collaboration and shared concerns.

We very much look forward to the new opportunities for promoting community health and wellbeing that Professor Gupta’s appointment will bring.

Professor Gupta, speaking of his new role said,

‘I am very pleased to have been given this opportunity to work even more closely with colleagues in the UCLan School of Medicine and the wider University. This provides a whole new spectrum of opportunities to enhance community health and wellbeing across the North West and further afield,

As a first example, in addition to the forthcoming annual Health Mela to be held at UCLan on Saturday, April 4th. next year, we are already planning a series of health-themed ‘Road Shows’ the first focused on ‘Diet, Nutrition and Health.’

To promote individual and community health effectively, we need to be right in the heart of the community and that’s just where we intend to be!’

Professor Cathy Jackson, Executive Dean & Head of School of Medicine at UCLan, welcomed her new colleague remarking that,

‘The medical school is delighted to have this opportunity to work more closely with the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing and to both continue and grow the contribution from staff and students of this and other schools within the university in the health mela and other community health related activities .

The National Forum for Health and Wellbeing shares the medical school and wider university’s aims of helping to support improvements in the health of all in the region and beyond and we look forward to working with Professor Oupta to develop further ways in which we can help to bring this about.’

Russell Hogarth, Honorary Fellow & Community Engagement Ambassador at UCLan and Community Engagement Officer for NFHW’, emphasised the wider significance of this new development in partnership saying,

‘It’s great news for University staff, students and the greater community.

We first brought the Preston Health Mela to the University of Central Lancashire back in 2015 and since then it’s become an annual event on campus that’s gone from strength to strength attracting up to 2000 people throughout the day. 

We are already working in partnership with the UCLan Faculty of Health and Wellbeing and colleagues in Pharmacy, so having the Medical School on board demonstrates a genuine commitment from the University to supporting the NFHW initiative of taking health matters direct to the public’.