The Letchworth Centre for Healthy Living is a small charity delivering innovative programmes which improve health, enhance wellbeing and prevent illness for all sections of the community. Our greatest strength is our ability to respond to need – and we have demonstrated this again and again during our 30-year history.

We were a pioneer in recognising the growing need for, and interest in, alternatives and complements to conventional medical treatment. When health care professionals sought greater understanding of the methods and principles which underpinned complementary medicine, we raised nearly £100,000 to enable us to develop university-accredited modules addressing their major areas of concern (such as stress, cancer care, immune-enhancement) as well as a two-year diploma which was the first such programme to be validated by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. We worked in partnership with Thames Valley University and became one of its associate colleges in the early 1990’s.

Before cancer care embraced complementary therapy as part of its palliative care programme, we worked with Marie Curie Cancer Care to stage an experiential day at the Kings Fund Centre in London attended by nurse managers from all over the country. We followed this with the design and delivery of modules for that organisation’s Cancer Care Nursing diploma and for a similar programme at St Christopher’s Hospice in London.

When one-to-one complementary treatment proved too costly or didn’t achieve anticipated results, we began to teach people ways of helping themselves to better health through classes such as Yoga, T’ai Chi and the like. We pioneered Mindfulness programmes in the country and for some while had run more of them than any other organisation.