ADPH Awards 2022
In 2022, there were eight categories with nominees from across the UK.
This award was to recognsise a DPH for the impact they have had since starting the role.
Runner up: Justin Varney, DPH Birmingham
Winner: Matt Ashton DPH, Liverpool
Matt has had national impact across several issues including during Covid-19 when he led the development of Liverpool’s Covid-19 testing. Moving from Mass Asymptomatic Serial Testing to Systematic Meaningful Asymptomatic Repeated Testing led to an estimated 21% reduction in cases, other tangible local benefits, and international interest.
Matt also leads DPH involvement in the Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action programme. The programme provides an integrated and shared intelligence base to support partners across the region and won the Best Use of Data award at last year’s Health Tech Awards. It has been shortlisted for this year’s HSJ Awards and is attracting national and international interest.
Matt is also the lead DPH for Food Active and provides strategic insight and guidance on the programme and is on the advisory board of the Liverpool FC Foundation where his advice on mental health support following stadium incidents has had impact well beyond the city’s boundaries.
This award was to recognise a DPH who has made a significant contribution to the work of the ADPH.
Winner: Jim McManus, DPH Hertfordshire
Jim has been President of ADPH since November last year, having served as Vice President before that. He has been the policy lead for ADPH on drugs and alcohol, public mental health and sexual health, contributing to projects such as the National Consensus Statement on Reproductive Health and has been an active ADPH member since starting as joint DPH for Birmingham in 2008. Jim brings this wealth of experience, knowledge and skill to all his work.
Behind the scenes, Jim works tirelessly with stakeholders and partners to improve public health by influencing national policy decisions and responses to emerging situations. Jim also serves as the face of ADPH, talking to journalists and appearing on camera, often with very little notice, to help explain the importance of various issues to the public and has helped to guide Members across all four nations through an unprecedented public health crisis. Jim is an active Mentor to many ADPH members and his willingness to assist his fellow DsPH and offer individual support to members must not go unnoticed.
With two more years as ADPH President, Jim has only just begun, and the whole ADPH team are incredibly proud and honoured to support him – and excited to see what the future holds!
Kindly sponsored by Solutions4Health
This award was to recognise a DPH for demonstrating or championing innovative practice within their local authority.
Runners up: Tamara Djuretic, DPH, Barnet and Catherine Mbema, DPH, Lewisham
Winner: Jason Strelitz, DPH Newham
Jason and his team led the creation of the Covid Champion in the first wave of the pandemic and his work became the foundation for the national model. It created a structured framework for mobilising community advocates and champions to support the response to the pandemic, embedding and disseminating information into local communities through social and informal networks.
Jason was extremely generous with his approach and learning, establishing at pace a national network to share learning, experience and the things he would have done differently. This led to rapid innovation and iteration, providing invaluable help for others to avoid some of the potential ‘bear traps’ especially around potential lobbying and political positioning of champions given a platform.
Newham’s approach to utilising champions to co-produce solutions and create soft intelligence feedback speaks to the fundamentals of public health practice in action. Jason’s commitment to this and demonstrating its value to others means that we have avoided the champions simply being seen as information dissemination and instead it has become a model of collaboration with communities and citizens – brilliant public health in action.
Kindly sponsored by Intelligent Health
This award was to recognise a DPH for leading successful partnership with a sector or organisation.
Runners up: Amanda Healy, DPH Durham and Lisa McNally, DPH Sandwell
Winner: Anna Hartley, DPH Wakefield
Anna has an exceptional ability to build partnerships and relationships both across her own organisation and in the wider system. The basement café in Wakefield Council is often referred to as Anna’s ‘second office’, because it comes naturally to her to meet over coffee and catch up with people from all over the local system.
Anna is always ready to listen and is interested in different perspectives, building the foundations that mean she can advocate for public health throughout the system. She is not afraid to challenge when she needs to but recognises that this is best done from a place of partnership and respect.
Anna’s gift for partnership and hearing what people have to say was exemplified this summer through Wakefield’s ‘Big Conversation’ – a hugely popular campaign. Anna’s partnership thinking also extends to her work as part of the group of West Yorkshire DsPH and the School of Public Health, where she gives her time and energy to train registrars and support the selection centre.
Kindly sponsored by the Faculty of Public Health
This award is to recognise a DPH for their dedication and commitment to mentoring, either via the ADPH Mentoring Scheme, or via other public health mentoring services.
Runner up: Anna Hartley, DPH Wakefield
Winner: Thara Raj, DPH Warrington
Thara joined the University of Birmingham faculty team running the ADPH/PHE/OHID supported Aspiring Directors of Public Health leadership programme where she has used her natural mentoring style to help with succession planning for the next generation of DsPH.
Thara has run action learning sets and coached future DsPH alongside leading her team and supporting her CEX and has been a visible leader since she started in August 2020.
This award is to recognise a public health team for establishing ways to improve public health practice.
Runner up: Liverpool PH Team
Winner: The Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (BLACHIR) partnerhip – Justin Varney, DPH Birmingham & Catherine Mbema, DPH Lewisham
The Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review is a groundbreaking approach taken across two local authorities from different regions to tackle a common challenge. PH teams often collaborate with neighbours but to look beyond the obvious brings the potential for different and new insights.
The work is vitally important and “of the moment” and is underpinned by a combination of new quantitative and qualitative data. The work is action orientated and has identified 39 opportunities for action across a wide range of themes and domains.
This award is to recognise a public health team for how they have worked together to improve public health in their area.
Runner up: Calderdale Public Health Team
Winner: Leicester City Public Health Team
Leicester City Council Public Health Team came under intense scrutiny and pressure during the pandemic – beyond anything they had previously known. Under the exemplary leadership of DPH Ivan Browne, the team pulled together in an extraordinary show of resilience, dedication, creativity and hard work.
They supported each other and brought into the fold teams from across the Council, NHS and the Voluntary and Community Sector to respond to the crisis by working alongside communities across the city.
The Team were the first in the country to develop a local contact tracing service that surpassed all the national targets, reaching those often labelled ‘hard to reach’ and took on tasks well outside their own comfort zones going the extra mile to support the huge City-wide effort to protect residents.
In the last year the Team have taken on board the many lessons learnt and are building on the trust gained from the community, for example by developing Community Health and Wellbeing Champions using the model that worked so well to increase vaccinations to promote other essential areas of health promotion and protection. The team has been described as positive, caring, hardworking, capable, enthusiastic, and determined!
Kindly sponsored by Panoramic Associates
This award was to recognise a DPH for leading the undertaking of public health research, or the use of research evidence, to inform decision making in their authority.
Runners up: Tom Hall, DPH South Tyneside and Justin Varney, DPH Birmingham
Winner: Alice Wiseman, DPH Gateshead
Alice is a passionate advocate for research and evidence based public health policy and practice – for which she was particularly prominent in the media during the Covid-19 pandemic. She has contributed across SPHR2 and SPHR3 as a practice partner across the various projects in the Health Inequalities Programme and has also contributed to SPHR Annual Scientific Meetings.
In addition, Alice leads a new NIHR Health Determinant Research Collaboration and is a co-investigator on an NIHR Public Health Research grant on Evaluating the Mental Health Effects of Universal Credit. Alice has also contributed to Fuse and other regional research on health inequalities in the North East over several years.
Kindly sponsored by NIHR School for Public Research