Dr Anna Forbes is the founder of The Forbes Clinic, and Head of Integrative Medicine at The Hale Clinic on Harley Street. She qualified in Medicine from the University of Nottingham in 2006 and completed the UK’s first university postgraduate diploma in Integrative Medicine in 2011.

Her route into integrative medicine began with her own health. Gut problems that started at medical school went unresolved by conventional care. On busy hospital wards she saw symptoms managed while patients’ emotional lives and personal histories went unexplored. She initially trained as a psychotherapist alongside her junior doctor posts, then in Medical Hypnosis, Mind–Body Medicine, Frequency Medicine, Nutritional and Functional Medicine. She has also developed a deep appreciation of the role of Spirituality in health, having done a lot of training and practice in this area too.

How she works
Dr Forbes supports people living with and beyond cancer alongside their oncology team. Each patient starts with a 1.5-hour Integrative Health Assessment, guided by a five-area framework she developed to address chronic and complex illness at a root cause level:

1. Nutrient status, including deficiencies caused by poor absorption in the gut.
2. Environmental and toxic load, such as heavy metals, mould and everyday chemicals in food, the home, water and air.
3. Structural influences, including dental health and chronic tension affecting the nervous system.
4. Psycho-emotional stress and unresolved trauma held in the body.
5. Epigenetics, meaning each person’s genetic blueprint and how it responds to all of the above.
Functional testing and DNA-based nutrigenomics then show what each patient’s body needs, and the plan is built from those results.

For most people, Dr. Forbes starts with correcting deficiencies, reducing toxic load and supporting gut and immune function to bring the quickest gains and give patients enough stability for deeper work. Cancer is a consequence of immune dysfunction. Immune repair and psychoneuroimmunology are some of Dr. Forbes’ key areas of speciality. She was one of the first UK doctors trained in Micro-Immunotherapy, which uses low-dose, plant-derived substances to support immune communication. Each 10 to 12 month protocol is built from a detailed history and advanced blood testing of immune cell balance, inflammation, and chronic viral reactivation, and can be used alongside cancer treatment or after chemotherapy. In Integrative Medicine we don’t talk about ‘treatment’ or ‘cure’ – instead it is about supporting your system as optimally as possible.

The longer work looks at stress, unresolved trauma and the beliefs and emotional patterns that continue to shape physiology. Her psychotherapy training helps patients join the dots between their life story and their health, and regain a sense of agency. A cancer diagnosis often brings shock and fear, so by understanding the healing process and how to best support one’s own body can help patients stay out of fear and surround themselves with people who support their healing. For those who want it, Dr. Forbes also makes room for meaning, purpose and a spiritual perspective, which can ease fear at its deepest level.

Dr Forbes holds that a practitioner can only take someone as far as they have been themselves, and she continues her own inner work. She gave up her GMC licence in April 2026, after 20 years as a licensed doctor, to focus on Integrative Medicine in its fullest sense, and works closely with GMC-registered colleagues.

BMedSci (Hons), MBBS (University of Nottingham, 2006), MDCH, DHP, DipSIM (Postgraduate Diploma in Integrative Medicine, 2011), Diploma in Functional Medicine. GMC-Retired.
Head of Integrative Medicine, The Hale Clinic, Harley Street. Founder, The Forbes Clinic of Integrative Medicine.

Integrative Oncology Support, Cancer & Post-Chemotherapy Support, Micro-Immunotherapy, Low Immunity & Recurrent Infections, Chronic Inflammatory Conditions, Functional Medicine, Functional Testing, Nutrigenomics, Nutritional Therapy, Psychoneuroimmunology, Mind–Body Medicine, Detoxification, Integrative Medicine Doctor