Healthy Living Centres

In 1999, the New Opportunities Fund (now Big Lottery Fund) launched the Healthy Living Centres programme with a budget of £300 million. This scheme has funded 349 Healthy Living Centres (HLCs) in the UK, all running a diverse range of project within different settings.

Not all HLCs are centres as such; many operate as networks of activities or focus on outreach work. Some are run from within the statutory sector, such as Primary Care Trusts or Local Authorities, others are run by charities or other voluntary bodies. However, they all involve their local communities both in using and delivering the activities on offer. These activities themselves vary greatly, as some HLCs have a singular focus or have been set up to tackle a particular need within the locality (e.g. mental health or the elderly) whereas others promote good health in a broader sense through health information, physical exercise and education.

What all HLCs have in common is that they target the most disadvantaged sections or groups of the population and seek to address the wider determinants of health and health inequalities, such as social exclusion, lack of access to services and socioeconomic deprivation.