After doing a bit of research I found a solution -
the http_build_query function which takes an array of variables and builds a nice URL encoded string which you can append to a url.
[code=php] $myvariable = "myvariable";
$title = "Welcome to Health";
$fields = array('myvariable' => $myvariable,
'title' => $title);
$url = "http://mywebsite/index.php?" . http_build_query($fields, '', "&");
header("Location: $url");
[/code]
Tested locally gives
localhost/index.php?myvariable=myvariable&title=Welcome+to+Health