Ruth has worked across a wide range of sectors, including the European Parliament, Audit Commission and King’s Fund and has also held lay and non-executive appointments within the NHS in London. Ruth was Deputy Director of Public Health at Coventry City Council, Director of Public Health at Leicester City Council and is now Director of Public Health at Solihull MBC where she has responsibility for health and well-being, leisure services and leads resilience and emergency planning for Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull.
Ruth has a number of national roles including on the Board of the Association of Directors of Public Health and sits on the national Testing Prioritisation Board and national Testing Evaluation Board for NHS Test and Trace.
During COVID, Ruth has provided strategic leadership to the overall local multi-agency response to COVID working with a wide range of sectors including the broader business community, education, the NHS, social care and voluntary and community sector.

Richard trained as a doctor in London and qualified in 1993 before working in Accident & Emergency and hospital medicine and entering public health in 1999. More recently he has worked in local authorities, the NHS and other public health organisations both nationally and internationally.
Richard has led transformation and improvement of health and care at local and national level. He has led work for the Associations of Directors of Adult Social Services and Public Health regionally and nationally. He has also advised the Department of Health, Home Office and European Commission. Richard has a particular interest in innovation and the use of technology to improve the quality and productivity of health and care services.

Nadia is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health with an MBChB from Bristol, and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Warwick. She joined Walsall Council at the end of November 2022 as a Consultant in Public Health, with a lead for inequalities, substance misuse and mental wellbeing.

She previously worked at Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council as a Consultant in Public Health and lead for Health Protection, where she had a significant role in leading and supporting the pandemic response.

Helen has worked in public health for over 30 years, starting her career in intelligence roles in the NHS in London and then Wolverhampton. She worked in the NHS in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin in public health for many years, transferring to Telford & Wrekin Council in 2013 in her Consultant in Public Health role which had a wide scope covering all the domains of public health. Helen has been Deputy DPH in Telford & Wrekin since 2020 and is currently Interim Director of Public Health. The best start in life and tackling health inequalities are her key areas of interest and she feels the most rewarding part of the role is working with people in recovery and those with lived experience of domestic abuse and CSE.

Sally Burns was appointed Director of Public Health for Birmingham in May 2025. Prior to this, she served as Director of Public Health for West Northamptonshire Council from March 2022, where she led the successful transition from a joint county-wide public health service to an independent West Northamptonshire team.

Her previous roles include Assistant Director of Public Health in the London Borough of Newham and Public Health Consultant in Waltham Forest. Sally began her career as an Environmental Health Officer in Yorkshire and has spent her entire career in local government, with a strong focus on developing and delivering services that promote health and wellbeing.

She also held the position of Director of Communities and Neighbourhoods for City of York Council, overseeing a wide range of services including Public Health, Housing, Community Safety, Community Engagement, Environment, Parks and Open Spaces, Culture, Leisure, and Regulatory Services. While in the East Midlands, she was the regional lead Director of Public Health for sector-led improvement in Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation.

Rachel has worked in public health for nearly 23 years. Beginning her career in health intelligence and research working in Newcastle, Birmingham and then Walsall. She then moved on to spend the next 10 years in Warwickshire as a Consultant in Public Health and latterly Associate Director of Public Health, across both the local authority and Clinical Commissioning Group with a focus on the North of Warwickshire. Rachel moved to Shropshire in April 2019.
Rachel’s interests are in ensuring a strong evidence base underpins all decision making; focusing on understanding the variation in health and wellbeing outcomes to target and tackle inequalities, as early as possible. She believes this needs to be achieved through strong partnerships and working together with communities.

Stephen joined Stoke-on-Trent City Council, as Director Public Health in September 2023, from Walsall Council, as Director of Public Health, Policy & Strategy and Business Insights and Commissioning, since August 2019. Stephen has over 20 years’ experience in delivering improved outcomes and reducing inequalities with the people he served, putting them at the heart of everything he does. He has worked at international, national, regional and local level in the civil service, NHS, local government and NGO’s. His role at Stoke-on-Trent not only covers Public Health, it includes public protection, community development, bereavement care, and leisure and wellbeing which gives a real opportunity to making real impact to the population of Stoke-on-Trent.

Initially training as a psychologist, qualifying with a doctorate at UCL, Lisa went on to train and work in Public Health over several years, qualifying as a UKPHR Public Health Specialist and Fellow of the Faculty in Public Health.

Lisa has published a range of scientific articles, and book/book chapters in the field of Public Health. She has worked within the NHS and Local Government, as well as a consultant to NHS Trusts, NICE, WHO and Government. Her current special interests are in community development and public mental health.

Allison started her career as a scientist in NHS laboratories and joined the civil service after receiving her PhD in Medicine.  After a few years working in heath and safety, and infectious disease policy she joined the HPA  as a senior epi scientist in Colindale.  Allison Joined the PH training scheme in 2005 and has worked across London and the South East.  After a spell as interim DPH in Kent County, she joined Coventry City Council as the DPH in March 2022.

I joined WCC in October 2019 as Director of Public Health with responsible for improving and protecting the health of Warwickshire’s population.

Shortly after I resumed in post, Covid arrived on the scene. I therefore spent the first two years leading on the pandemic response in Warwickshire and working with system partners to ensure that we protected our most disadvantaged and vulnerable residents.

In the last year, as covid has settled and life has returned to some sort of normalcy, a different set of challenges have emerged. The cost-of-living crisis, precipitated by a complex mix of factors has raised the importance of health inequalities once again, similar to how the pandemic did. I am currently working across WCC and the local health economy to ensure that we begin to think through and develop robust responses, actions and interventions to address/tackle the current challenge.

I don’t do the work on my own, I’m supported by a great small team of about 27 people who work across different areas of public health – health improvement, health protection, health inequalities, mental health, children’s health and the wider determinants of health. I have also been particularly impressed with the wider system in Warwickshire and a strong commitment amongst system partners to work collaboratively to influence all of what makes us healthy.

In my spare time, I love to read. I also like to travel, although most destinations have so far been limited to child friendly locations!

Coming soon

Soon…

Frances has worked in senior public health roles in the West Midlands since 2000 including as Director in Herefordshire and in Worcestershire, and in the previous Regional Office, and Strategic Health Authority.

Prior to that she worked in a Regional Health Authority and City Council. She has also worked in academia, in the Universities of Worcester and Newcastle, focussing on midwifery and ante-natal service evaluation and on in-service education for health professionals.

She qualified through the retrospective portfolio route and is active in both the UKPHR registration work and in the work of the FPH, acting as West Midlands Faculty Adviser. She has a particular interest in health inequalities and in the role of public health in a local authority.

Soon….