ORGANISERS of this month’s successful Westbury Health Fair are planning to host similar community events in the future.
The Health Fair took place at the Laverton on Thursday 9th October, and was organised by the Westbury Area Board to offer on-the-spot advice on health and wellbeing.
Community area manager Sally Hendry said, “The health fair went very well, we had almost 100 people taking part including local MP Dr Andrew Murrison.
“There were about 25 stalls with subjects covering a wide range of health and wellbeing issues from healthy eating through to support groups. There were also organisations offering advice and help on issues like support for carers. The White Horse Health Centre’s on-the-spot flu jabs proved very popular. Wiltshire Council’s public health team offered people the chance to get blood pressure and cholesterol level checks, and to find out about alcohol intake, which included trying to walk in a straight line while donning a pair of spectacles that affect your vision as if you were drunk!
“We also had a very popular dementia awareness presentation, with more than 30 people taking part in a 45-minute session carried out by a dementia champion trained through the Alzheimer’s Society.
“The health fair was followed by a shortened area board featuring a presentation on the Better Care Plan by Wiltshire Council corporate director Maggie Rae.”
Westbury Area Board chairman, cllr David Jenkins said, “The fair went extremely well, and we’re very pleased that there was a mixture of new and familiar faces who came along to support it.
“We’d not done anything quite like it before, but the area board is planning to continue hosting similar fairs on a number of subjects that will hopefully appeal to the whole spectrum of people in the community.
“We’d like to thank all the people and organisations who came along to make it a success, it was very encouraging.”
Westbury’s Health Fair came in the wake of statistics showing that locally the number of people engaging in physical activity was lower, and the number of overweight children higher than the Wiltshire averages. However, Westbury does have a high number of children walking and cycling to school. Information on leisure and exercise opportunities in the area was also on hand at the fair.
For more information about what’s on in the Westbury area, go to www.westbury.ourcommunitymatters.org.uk
For those who missed the presentation on Wiltshire Council’s Better Care Plan, a special explanatory DVD is now on Youtube at http://youtu.be/5Xu47TLk7Hc
