The year that was

This year’s Annual Review really brings into focus the increasing breadth and depth of ADPH’s impact. Of course, every year has its own opportunities and challenges, but 25/26 has seen an unprecedented level of system change which we are navigating at the same time as delivering on our responsibilities to improve population health and wellbeing.

As a result, the principle of shared leadership has never been more important and enables us to advocate as one voice in a wide range of arenas. This would not be possible without the access to ongoing professional development and peer support being a member of ADPH provides, enhanced by increasing opportunities to learn from, and collaborate with, colleagues from across the British Isles and British Overseas Territories.

At our Annual Conference in November last year, there were a fair number of ex-presidents of ADPH – some from quite some considerable time ago. Most of them made a point of coming to talk to me to say that they felt that the ADPH community was vibrant and had developed significantly since their time as President. Our members made that happen and my job, along with the rest of the Board and Council, is to build on that and pass it on in even better shape to the future generation of DsPH.

ADPH is a members organisation. I say that again and again, but it really is down to our members that we have been able to grow both our professional support offer and national influence. Of course, we are helped immeasurably by the small staff team at what we affectionately call ‘ADPH Towers’. They have had a hard year with both long-term sickness and the very, very sad loss of John Johnston, who was our comms manager who died suddenly last summer. So posthumously, thank you to John too.

With all that in mind, it is with some pride that I presented a summary of the impact ADPH has had over the course of the last year at yesterday’s AGM.

We have just shy of 500 members and nearly everyone is engaged with ADPH activity in some way and that’s no mean feat. As well as supporting the professional development of DsPH, we’ve done a lot of work to enhance the skills, confidence and career progression of our Associate members by hosting peer support groups and running a highly successful mentoring scheme.

We have also worked hard to strengthen our relationships with stakeholders and last month, our three special projects that were funded by The Health Foundation, came to an end. The three projects were on the commercial determinants of health, healthy places and a project around children and young people. We did a lot within each of those three projects including new What Good Looks Likes for Healthy Places and Adversity Trauma and Resilience within the Children and Young People projects. We also hosted tailored training, masterclasses and webinars to support practice sharing and collaboration with colleagues across the sector.

We have been heavily engaged in efforts to improve public health practice in other areas too, and host three Commissioners’ Groups for sexual health, substance use and infants children and young people which provide a space for commissioners of these important services to meet, network and work together to improve the commissioning and delivery of local strategies and services.

In order to advocate for our collective voice at a national level, we also submit responses and evidence to Government consultations, and on occasion are asked to give oral evidence to select committees as well. This year, we submitted 16. It could have been 116 but we carefully select those we think we can really make an impact with.

We have also influenced national policy decisions through direct engagement with the Government, including for the child poverty strategy, where we were directly involved with the Taskforce – and will of course continue to do work in that space. We also continue to advocate for the DPH role through collaboration with our partners in the wider public health system and beyond, trying hard to increase our visibility and advocacy through engagement with ministers, parliamentary events, parliamentary spokespeople, and political party spokespeople for health.

Another thing we’ve done this year is a comprehensive survey of members which had a 77% response rate which, in survey terms, is pretty good. It’s important as the team can then use the information gathered to inform how they support members, ongoing strategy, policy position statements, new projects and more.

We also get views from members by sending me on a series of regional network visits. These are a really good opportunity for me to hear views directly from DsPH across the country. And strangely enough, the hot issues are the same in most regions, but, by hearing it direct, I can make sure these views are reflected in the various meetings I – and the rest of the Board and Council – go to on the behalf of our members.

Elsewhere, we have made the case for public health through consistent comms work and have had 156 media mentions, issued 120 statements, grown our LinkedIn following to 9,000 and welcomed 51,000 visitors to our website. We will of course continue to get our voice into new places and reach new audiences – and there is even talk of a new podcast in the future!

Throughout the Annual Review, a sense of partnership, collaboration and unity really leaps off the page – whether with fellow members, staff, or partners across the system and beyond. Reading it – and talking to members yesterday at our Annual DPH Workshop and AGM – it is clear to me that what we are doing is making a difference, and for that, I am immensely proud.