About us
Vibrant Health Advocates - Orion is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation rooted in Livingston, West Lothian. We exist because health inequality in Scotland is not only a matter of geography or income — it is also a matter of time. Hundreds of thousands of people work shifts, and their working hours put standard health and wellbeing services permanently out of reach. Our charity was set up to do something practical about that specific problem, in this specific place.
We operate a network of drop-in sessions positioned around Livingston's major employment sites — including the Alderstone, Deans, and Deer Park industrial and distribution areas — at evenings and weekends when workers can attend. Sessions are staffed by trained health advocates supported by visiting clinical volunteers from NHS Lothian, West Lothian Council public health teams, and local allied health professionals who give their time because they believe, as we do, that geography and a shift rota should never determine someone's access to health guidance.
We are not a crisis service and we are not a substitute for NHS care. What we are is a reliable, warm, informed first point of contact — the place where a worker can ask the question they have been putting off for six months, get a clear answer in plain English, and leave knowing what their next step is and how to take it. Over the years we have helped people get onto waiting lists they did not know existed, supported workers managing long-term conditions while juggling twelve-hour shifts, and connected hundreds of individuals to mental health, debt, and housing services that work alongside our own.
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"The structure of someone's working day should never be a barrier to their health — and we close that gap through drop-ins, outreach, and navigation support that fits around real working lives."
Vibrant Health Advocates - Orion grew out of conversations that happened in a car park. A small group of health promotion workers and community volunteers, several of them former warehouse and factory employees themselves, kept noticing the same thing: workers finishing night shifts at Livingston's distribution parks had nowhere to turn for health advice during the hours they were actually free. The local surgeries were closed, the walk-in centres were across town, and after a twelve-hour shift the last thing anyone wanted was a two-bus journey to ask a simple question.
In 2017, that group began running informal, unannounced health information pop-ups near the main gates of two industrial sites. Word spread faster than they expected. Within a year they had formalised as a SCIO, secured funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and the Scottish Government's Investing in Communities programme, and established a regular programme of evening and weekend drop-ins.
What has not changed since those car park conversations is the fundamental conviction that drove them: that the people who keep distribution chains running, who work bank holidays and through the night, deserve the same quality of health access as everyone else. Vibrant Health Advocates - Orion has grown steadily — adding venues, extending hours, deepening partnerships with NHS Lothian and West Lothian Council — but it remains led by the same community instinct that started it. We know Livingston's shift-working community because many of us are part of it, and we design everything we do around what actually works for people whose lives do not fit the standard nine-to-five frame.
Vibrant Health Advocates - Orion exists to ensure that every shift worker and industrial employee in Livingston has genuine, practical access to health information and support — regardless of what hours they work. We believe that the structure of someone's working day should never be a barrier to their health, and we close that gap through a programme of evening and weekend drop-ins, community outreach, and navigation support that connects workers to the services they need. We work without judgement, in plain language, and at times and places that fit around real working lives.
Vibrant Health Advocates - Orion is governed by a board of trustees who bring together expertise in public health, employment law, community development, and lived experience of shift work in Livingston's industrial sector. Our trustees set strategic direction, ensure financial accountability, and help us stay genuinely connected to the workers and communities we serve. Day-to-day the charity is run by a small staff team and a network of trained volunteer health advocates, many of whom came to us as service users first.
Margaret Aitken
Chair
Devraj Nair
Treasurer
Sandra McPherson
Trustee
Whether you are a worker looking for support, a volunteer, or an organisation that wants to partner with us — we would love to hear from you.
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