Member blog: Alison Challenger

I began my career as a nurse and midwife in Hillingdon and North Herts respectively, and later Nottingham as a community midwife. My experiences supporting young families led me to become increasingly interested in public health, particularly the impact smoking had on not just individual health, but that of families and the wider community.

As a result, I started working in Greater Nottingham public health team and, as the strategic tobacco control manager, developed the greater Nottingham stop smoking services following the influential smoking kills white paper. I was then heavily involved in both local and regional efforts as regional lead for East Midlands public health group advocating for smoke free public places which ultimately led to the nation-wide ban on smoking in public places.

In 2005, I started my specialist training and in 2009, became a Consultant in Nottingham, later becoming the city’s DPH after the transfer of public health in England to local government.

I have always been passionate about tobacco control and the devastating impact it has on health was never more apparent than during Covid-19. At the end of the last lockdown, I took up my current post as DPH in West Sussex and, with a renewed focus to reduce the prevalence incidence of smoking, and smoking-related illness and death, started work to support the area to recover from the pandemic.

It will be a long process, but we have made good progress, and I am determined to put in place measures and initiatives that will boost our resilience so that when the next pandemic comes, we are healthier and better prepared.

An important part of that is to continue to drive down the numbers of people who smoke and I have been able to set up new specialist stop smoking services based within the county council, expanding services across the county where prevalence highest. The service is due to be launched in November and we have already seen significant increase in the number of referrals. We are also working in partnership with NHS Sussex to develop an ICS-wide collaborative approach on smoking cessation.

Of course, it is not just an addiction to tobacco that can impact health and wellbeing, and I have recently become ADPH’s policy lead for addiction. By helping to capture DsPH’s collective expertise into policy and evidence-based recommendations, I aim to advocate for policy changes at a national and local level that will tackle addiction, in a progressive, compassionate and effective way.

It is absolutely vital too that any policies or services we introduce are developed in partnership with the people who they support. This method of co-production ensures that people living with addiction’s needs are met effectively, without judgement, which in turn ensures that long-term recovery is more likely, and that ultimately, more lives are saved. ‘Real’ people’s input is also incredibly important to understand what leads to addiction, and so will help us develop initiatives and recommendations that will help prevent people from ever becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling.

I am also ADPH’s lead for workforce, which is a role focussed on advocating for a respected, recognised, and sustainable public health workforce. Afterall, our work to prevent people from becoming ill and protect them from harm will be fruitless if we don’t have enough properly trained public health experts to continue and develop it!