Lorraine is an experienced public health leader, beginning her public health career in February 2000 and working in the voluntary sector prior to this delivering community-based programmes in Gateshead.  A public health specialist and Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Lorraine joined Darlington Borough Council in March 2024 as the Director of Public Health and brings with her a wealth of experience having previously led on a wide range of public health areas including tobacco control, sexual health, children and young people, health protection, accident prevention, healthy weight and mental health and wellbeing.  She is passionate about working with others to reduce health inequalities and drive forward service improvement and innovation, alongside supporting and developing others to succeed in their public health career.

Darlington BC – Home

Amanda took up the role of Director of Public Health in County Durham in May 2017 having previously been DPH in South Tyneside and is committed to improving and protecting the health of local residents.  She has worked on reducing health inequalities using an assets approach for over twenty years and plays a key role in understanding the health challenges and positive aspects of health and wellbeing locally. Amanda works in collaboration with a range of partners to develop plans e.g., Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and has a pivotal part in embedding public health across the local authority, with partners and most importantly with communities.  

Amanda has taken a key role in the response to covid-19 since from January 2020 until the current time. This has included close working arrangements with Durham University as well as system partners. 

Amanda is chair of the NE Association of Directors of Public Health and is Vice Chair of the Integrated Health System Population Health and Prevention Board. 

Home – Durham County Council

Alice Wiseman has been Director of Public Health in Gateshead and Newcastle since April 2024. Prior to this she was the DPH in Gateshead and has been registered with the UK Public Health Register since December 2009. Before becoming a DPH Alice worked in a broad range of senior public health roles across Tyne and Wear.

Alice’s first degree was in Social Policy at Newcastle University, followed by a P.G.C.E, before training in public health.

Alice is passionate about improving health and well-being with a particular focus on tackling the unfair inequalities faced by some communities. Alice believes that effective action to address these inequalities requires dedicated effort across the determinants of health, as set out in the first Marmot Review ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ (2010).

Alice is driven by the injustice that two babies, born on the same day and the same hospital, can experience such different life chances, due entirely to the circumstances into which they are born.

Alice’s approach is firmly rooted in the belief that people, in their own communities, must be central to solving the issues of inequality; firstly, through sharing lived experience and secondly, through identifying innovative and creative ways to improve outcomes for their community.

Alice is also involved in the production of research evidence and in 2022 Alice led a collaboration between Gateshead Council and Newcastle University which secured a five-year NIHR contract with the Health Determinants Research Collaborative. Research priorities have focussed on opportunities to gain a better understanding of the lived experience, and impact of, Government policy on people in some of the most disadvantaged communities. Using research to give a voice to people who are least likely to be heard, and often easiest to ignore, is central to her work in tackling inequalities at a local level.

Gateshead Council – Gateshead Council

Craig has worked in Public Health for nearly 28 years.  He began his career in health improvement and took on a number of roles in the NHS and local government before joining the Specialty Training programme.   

Craig has worked as a Consultant in Public Health in Newcastle and Deputy Director of Public Health at Hartlepool before taking up the role of Acting DPH in July 2020.  

Craig was appointed to the substantive role in November 2020. 

Hartlepool Borough Council Homepage

Mark has worked in Public Health since 2010, moving into Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council in 2013 after 20 years in the NHS in finance, commissioning, PFI project management and business development.

Mark became Director of Public Health for Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland on 23 March 2020 – the day of the first UK lockdown.

Home | Middlesbrough Council

Alice Wiseman has been Director of Public Health in Gateshead and Newcastle since April 2024. Prior to this she was the DPH in Gateshead and has been registered with the UK Public Health Register since December 2009. Before becoming a DPH Alice worked in a broad range of senior public health roles across Tyne and Wear.

Alice’s first degree was in Social Policy at Newcastle University, followed by a P.G.C.E, before training in public health.

Alice is passionate about improving health and well-being with a particular focus on tackling the unfair inequalities faced by some communities. Alice believes that effective action to address these inequalities requires dedicated effort across the determinants of health, as set out in the first Marmot Review ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ (2010).

Alice is driven by the injustice that two babies, born on the same day and the same hospital, can experience such different life chances, due entirely to the circumstances into which they are born.

Alice’s approach is firmly rooted in the belief that people, in their own communities, must be central to solving the issues of inequality; firstly, through sharing lived experience and secondly, through identifying innovative and creative ways to improve outcomes for their community.

Alice is also involved in the production of research evidence and in 2022 Alice led a collaboration between Gateshead Council and Newcastle University which secured a five-year NIHR contract with the Health Determinants Research Collaborative. Research priorities have focussed on opportunities to gain a better understanding of the lived experience, and impact of, Government policy on people in some of the most disadvantaged communities. Using research to give a voice to people who are least likely to be heard, and often easiest to ignore, is central to her work in tackling inequalities at a local level.

Welcome to our great city | Newcastle City Council

Wendy is an experienced public health specialist and Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. She had a career in the NHS spanning 23 years as a nurse, health visitor and clinical manager before undertaking the Public Health Specialty Training Programme. She  has been employed by North Tyneside Council since 2013 firstly as a Public Health Consultant and then as the  Director of Public Health from 2016. Wendy is responsible for a large and diverse public health department including an in- house 0-19 Children’s Public Health Service (health visitors and school nurses), a public protection service comprising licensing, trading standards and environmental health and a team responsible for community safety and emergency planning. Wendy is  the NE ADPH lead for children and young people, public health nursing, CVD prevention and mental health. 

North Tyneside Council

Gill O’Neill has been appointed as Director of Public Health for Northumberland as of February 2023.  In addition to the public health role Gill has an Executive Director portfolio within Northumberland County Council including leisure, libraries, archives, Northumberland Communities Together, customer engagement, registrars and the Coroner’s office.

Northumberland County Council – Home

Mark has worked in Public Health since 2010, moving into Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council in 2013 after 20 years in the NHS in finance, commissioning, PFI project management and business development.

Mark became Director of Public Health for Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland on 23 March 2020 – the day of the first UK lockdown.

Redcar and Cleveland Homepage | Redcar and Cleveland (redcar-cleveland.gov.uk)

Tom is an experienced public health leader and specialist, having started his public health career in 2003 following his undergraduate degree in Sports Science. Tom gained a master’s in public health in 2007 and was elected to Fellowship of Faculty of Public Health and registered as a Generalist Specialist on the UK Public Health Register (Register Number FR0644) in 2012.

 His first Consultant role was with North Yorkshire County Council before joining the South Tyneside health and care system in 2015. In 2017, Tom became the Director of Public Health. His current role includes being the Council’s Statutory Chief Officer for Health and Wellbeing, Health and Wellbeing Board and Strategy Lead, accountable officer for the discharge of the Public Health Grant and statutory commissioning and provision requirements, and link Director of Public Health for the Northeast Clinical Research Network School of Public Health and the Applied Research Collaboration. Tom is also a member of the Integrated Care Board for the North East and North Cumbria.

Home – South Tyneside Council

Stockton on Tees Borough Council – Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Gerry Taylor is Executive Director for Health, Housing and Communities in Sunderland.  Gerry joined Sunderland City Council in November 2020 following several years as DPH in Luton and developing her Public Health career in North London and for a year in India.  Gerry began her career in Sunderland, at the then Sunderland Polytechnic and returns as visiting professor to the University of Sunderland.  She has been registered on the UKPHR since 2006 and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health

Sunderland Home Page – Sunderland City Council

Colin Cox has been Director of Public Health and Communities for Cumberland Council since that Council was formed in April 2023 following the reorganisation of local government in Cumbria. In this role he is responsible not only for public health but also for public protection and a wide range of community engagement and community development functions. Prior to this he was Director of Public Health for Cumbria for nine years, during which he was instrumental in establishing  the Health and Wellbeing Coach team, a significant new approach to supporting individuals to improve their health and wellbeing, as well as leading the local response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Before Cumbria he spent 11 years in Manchester’s Joint Health Unit and public health team, having moved there from Stockport, where he started his career co-ordinating the work of the Drug Action Team before moving into wider health policy and partnership management.

Welcome to Cumberland | Cumberland Council

Dr Claire Sullivan is the Deputy Director for Health, Wellbeing and Workforce at the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities. Claire started her career in the voluntary and community sector before joining the NHS Graduate Management Scheme, where she first gained an interest in public health working in the West End of Newcastle. She has worked as a Consultant in Public Health for over 18 years working in a variety of organisations including the NHS, local government and Public Health England. Her special interests include sexual health, reducing harm caused by alcohol and women’s health which informed her PhD research which she completed in 2019. She is passionate about workforce development. After serving as the North East Faculty of Public Health (FPH) CPD advisor, she is now the North East FPH Board Member as well as the Chair of the North East Public Health Practitioner Scheme. 

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

Peter is Regional Director for Public Health for the North East and Yorkshire for the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID) within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and is also a joint appointment as the NHS regional director of public health.

He had previously been Director of Public Health for Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council for 4 years (2012-2106). Before this he was a Director of Public Health for 11 years in various NHS posts on Teesside and the North East of England.   Peter has a PhD in statistics and for the first 12 years of his career he was a lecturer in Medical Statistics at Newcastle University, and then director of a health research unit at Teesside University.

Peter is a long-standing advocate for identifying and addressing health inequalities and has led major public health programmes in all his roles.  He was responsible for the public health response to the covid-19 pandemic for the North East and Yorkshire region and received the Presidents gold medal from the Faculty of Public Health for his leadership throughout this period.

His current responsibilities include the provision of public health policy advice to ministers and DHSC and leading an expert public health service to support the work of the Local Authorities and NHS partners in the North East and Yorkshire.

He received a CBE in the Kings Honours list for services to public health in June 2023.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

UK Health Security Agency