This week the Royal Society for Public Health is promoting the wider public health workforce which is ‘any individual who is not a specialist or practitioner in public health but has the opportunity or ability to positively impact health and wellbeing through their work’. Between 15-20 million people in over 170 occupations are estimated to work in this group. Here, Public Health Liverpool Consultant Eustace De Sousa, outlines the importance of their work, which goes on largely unseen.
For large parts of my 35 year career, I have worked in roles not previously recognised as being part of the wider public health workforce. In those roles I, and others like me, were very much contributing to public health – which is defined as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health and wellbeing, through the organised efforts of society’.
So during the first part of my career in youth rights and advocacy, in setting up council neighbourhood centres in deprived areas, in managing adult and children’s social care, and in delivering holistic housing programmes, my teams and I were having a direct impact on not just safeguarding individual adults, children and families, but contributing positively to better health and wellbeing for communities which is at the heart of public health.
More recently in my career, in regional roles in the North West for the NHS, and in the national team at Public Health England, I was indebted to the expertise and work of this wider workforce. The planners, engineers and emergency services for our work on road safety; the educationalists and school support staff, social workers and youth groups advising us on young people’s health and wellbeing; the older people’s groups and services steering our policy and prioritisation work on healthy ageing; I could go on but you will see how in almost everything we do in local government, we are shaping public health.
Returning to local government here in Liverpool, I have found an innovative and vibrant wider public health workforce in the Council and across the city. Internally, we have strong examples of this. A recent Improving Health through Housing summit tested how our housing department and external partners can use public health approaches to improve the quality of housing across the city; the Council is using the internationally recognised Health in All Policies framework to improve the built environment, bringing together colleagues from across housing, planning, policy and public health. And of course our unique health protection work is done not just by public health staff but professionals from disciplines across the Council and beyond, including environmental health, social care, education and community groups.
Through the Public Health grant, we fund programmes and services which cover everything from pre-conception through to older people, investing in teams across the Council. This means we can contribute to parenting support, early years and school age development, sports development, environmental health, healthy homes and adult social care. All making a difference to people’s health and wellbeing.
If you want to help find out more about RSPH’s work on the wider public health workforce visit their website and complete their online survey before the 8th October.
Eustace De Sousa is a Consultant in Public Health, providing interim senior level support to the Public Health team. He has worked in other local authorities, regionally for the NHS, and most recently for the national team at Public Health England, leading on health inequalities and the life course.