Presidential reflections from the Annual Conference

Last week was my first ADPH Annual Conference as President – only the second time we have held a big face-to-face event since the pandemic so there was still a lot of catching up to do amongst our members, who came from far and wide to attend.

After congratulating our new Vice President, Alice Wiseman (DPH Gateshead), I talked about my thoughts on ADPH’s future, covering a lot of ground from last month’s blog. I really wanted delegates to understand that for ‘us’ as an organisation to continue to be a ‘trusted voice of public health’ round the table, we need to embrace the concept of shared leadership.

As knowledgeable as I am about some things, I don’t know it all! Public health only works by sharing and collaborating and ADPH relies on the expertise of its members to represent the collective voice of Directors of Public Health. We have policy advisory groups that help shape our policy on certain topics and only by continuing to keep those groups full of a diverse range of DsPH, can we reflect a truly representative position.

The other point I really wanted to make was that we are a four nation – and beyond – organisation. It was fantastic to see so many members – not just DsPH, but Consultants too – from all over, including the Islands, with the DPH for the States of Guernsey amongst the delegates.

One of the most important things that ADPH offers its members is the means to share good practice and learn from each other. What happens in Cardiff could help shape what would work well in Colchester for example so hearing from DsPH in Scotland and the DPH for Northern Ireland is equally as important as listening to me from Sheffield or DsPH in London.

Every conference programme aims to reflect this diversity and this year’s theme of working in partnership to tackle poverty and the cost-of-living crisis, and climate change – issues which both have tangible impacts on our health – did just that. Instead of continually sticking plasters on the symptoms, we must identify and tackle the root causes and our job, as public health professionals, is to ensure everyone understands the consequences these have on our health.

We heard from Claire Moriarty, the Chief Executive of Citizens Advice and Dr Louisa Petchey from Public Health Wales as well as Alice Wiseman (DPH Gateshead), Allison Duggal (DPH Coventry) about the impact poverty is having on local populations. We also heard from Marcus Robinson (Hammersmith and Fulham Council) and Tricia Jessiman from NIHR PHIRST about a study looking at the difference providing a free school meal to all children in the area made.

It was clear from the presentations – and subsequent discussion – that we are only going to improve people’s lives throughout this crisis by working together. That means learning from each other as public health professionals, but also working with local organisations that know their communities best, as well as the public sector to provide initiatives and programmes that mitigate the impact poverty has, particularly for children and young people.

The afternoon session looked at climate change and, in addition to my presentation on what Sheffield is facing, we heard from Darrell Gale (DPH East Sussex), David Pencheon from the University of Exeter and Professor Rosie Green from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

We heard how Directors of Public Health and their teams are in a unique position to help tackle climate change because, as seasoned conveners, we know how to bring people together to drive system change and tackle problems effectively.

It seems obvious, but we are also well placed to tackle this issue because we are doing it anyway, with many public health measures having long-term benefits for the environment as well as shorter-term benefits for people’s health. In fact, the vast majority of climate policies have significant benefits for our short-term health, as well as protecting our long-term health by reducing the risk of extreme weather events and poor air quality.

Take transport for example – reducing emissions will of course help get us towards net zero – but it will also necessarily mean we are walking and cycling more – either as a way to access public transport or in and of themselves. We will also have more social connections as a result, which has a positive effect on our mental health too.

Climate change dwarfs other threats to health. It is absolutely imperative that we continue to talk about this over the coming months and years and learn from what is working well – and even more importantly, what isn’t going as well so we are able to work together to prevent, or at least mitigate, its potentially devastating effects.

In between the two sessions on partnership working, we had a busy lunchtime schedule including the presentation of our second ever ADPH Awards. This year there were nine categories, and it was a time for celebration and sharing success. We also announced two new Honorary ADPH Memberships – for my predecessor Prof. Jim McManus and Dr Dagmar Zeuner in recognition of their outstanding commitment to ADPH’s work over the last decade.

We were then honoured to host a Q&A session for our members with three of the UK’s CMOs – Sir Frank Atherton, Professor Sir Gregor Smith and Professor Sir Chris Whitty who attended the event to present the CMOs’ National Impact Award which, this year, went to Ivan Browne, former DPH for Leicester.

There was time for networking too, and we very much valued the feedback from members on our membership offer and on our three collaborative projects being funded by The Health Foundation on healthy places, children and young people and the commercial determinants of health.

Having talked to the sponsors, speakers and delegates I know we all enjoyed the day and benefited from the discussions. It is important to say too that these events are complex to pull together so my thanks go to the ADPH staff who worked behind the scenes to provide our members with such a full, rewarding day.

The next year will undoubtedly bring many challenges – some we know, and some will try and catch us out I’m sure, but I am confident that together, working in partnership and harnessing the expertise of the right people for the right job, we, as a community, will keep improving what we do to promote and protect our residents’ health and wellbeing.