Presidential reflections

This time last week, I was MC-in-chief at ADPH’s Annual Conference in London. It is a day that we all look forward to as a chance to catch up with our peers and share the good, the bad and the ugly of the public health world.

As the Association’s President, I get to start the day with my reflections on the past year and, like last year, I used the time to talk about why what ADPH do is so important.

It is a small charity – just 20 employees – yet it enables us, as Directors and Consultants of Public Health, to learn, share and improve in a whole range of ways. Equally importantly, ADPH represents our collective voice to a very senior level in Government to ensure that evidence-based interventions and policy that will improve and protect public health are presented to, and considered by, national and local decision makers.

How we do that is through our Board, Council and Policy Advisory Groups and this principle of shared leadership is vital to our success. We can’t all be experts in everything and we need to make sure we share the load of leading our collective voice. This year, we have welcomed new policy leads, Council and Board members and I hope that events like the conference encourage others to take a more active role in the Association’s work going forward. It is also important that we reflect the views – and situation – across all four countries and the dependent territories and again, no one DPH, particularly me as DPH for Sheffield, can do that!

I can – and do – however visit the constituency networks to make sure that I meet as many DsPH, and hear as many views, as possible. This year, I’ve visited London, the North East, North West, West Midlands, and Wales and we’ve talked about a whole range of issues from commercial determinants of health to workplace sickness, fluoridation, funding (always funding!) and much much more. The aim is to visit all the networks over the course of the next year or so and next on the list is Scotland which I’m very much looking forward to visiting in January.

Like in Wales, DsPH in Scotland work from within the NHS as opposed to local authorities, but the essence of the role is exactly the same, and we have much to learn and share – both in terms of practice and approaches to policy.

We were delighted to be joined at the event on Friday by both the current Minister for Public Health and Prevention, Andrew Gwynne, and former Health Minister, Lord Bethell, and there was a strong sense in the room that it is an exciting – if challenging – time to be working in public health.

The new Government has made a number of commitments to introducing measures that will go a long way to supporting our work to reduce the availability and affordability of health-harming products like tobacco, energy drinks and sugary food, and we are beginning to see a real shift in thinking.

However, last week’s conference was also an opportunity to highlight the difficulties we are facing at a local level. Public health funding has been consistently cut over the last decade and we need assurance that funding will not only be increased but be planned for and delivered over longer periods of time so that we can use it effectively to make the Government’s mission of moving from treatment to prevention a reality – something we all want to see.

I also talked about practice improvement. We are in a unique position as conveners and local leaders of health in that we get to see what really works and can define what good looks like in terms of quality public health provision. We are as a profession committed to demonstrating continuous improvement and of course to providing assurance to both internal and external stakeholders and the public, and ADPH provides national leadership and governance for this through the Sector-led Improvement Programme Board. Again, this relies on participation from members in all areas and it is a testament to both ADPH and its members that we have such good levels of engagement across all our work programmes.

Looking ahead, the organisation will continue to “support the public health function at a local level”, not just through supporting DsPH, but also tomorrow’s DsPH, our Associate Members, Portfolio Group members, and Commissioners with a wide range of workshops and webinars.

We will also continue to work on strengthening the public health system alongside our partners and stakeholders, as well as raise awareness of the DPH role and its importance within the wider system.

There is of course widespread recognition of the importance of NHS reform and delegates in the room last week echoed that. They also however rightly demanded that public health is not only not forgotten but given recognition for its vital role in prevention.

It was clear from the presentations and discussions last week that work to reduce the gap in health inequalities at a local level is hugely impactful: we know what works and we know how to share and replicate that with the organisations and individuals who can do something about it – we just need the resources and backing to do it.

So, as I said, it is an exciting time but it will be hard work. We will though, I am confident, get there, and it is a privilege and honour to be leading ADPH and flying the flag with such experienced and knowledgeable colleagues at this pivotal moment in time for public health.