Growing Public HealthAssessors and verifiers as the custodians of the standards

Paul SouthonHealth and Wellbeing Programme ManagerSandwell MBC

The new world – it’s noisy out therePublic health in councils

Budget cuts

Vanguards

Austerity

Business rates funding

Mental health &parity of esteem

Political environment & decision making

Risks

• Reducing resources & capacity across the whole system

• Loss of knowledge / skills / experience• Loss of relationships

• Integration (dilution?) of public health across councils• Loss of ‘public health’ identity

Opportunities

• Access to a wider range of people & expertise• People who are already influencing the social determinants• With a wide range of new knowledge / skills / experience• With established relationships

• Political support and a democratic mandate• Realising the potential of health in ALL policies• Cross department / organisation / sector working

• Getting better at improving the health of the population

Public health in the new world

Challenges to public health

• Council status - managing many people and a big budget• Public health – small teams & small budgets• More about influencing & system leadership

• Follow the money – how much have you saved this year?• Cashable savings / demonstrable reduction in service use?• How do you quantify prevention?• Social determinants – long term payback, often to someone else

• How do we sell the difference and value of public health?

The political dimension

• Working in a political environment• Democratic mandate• Very different from working in the NHS• Re-framing the narrative• Not always charts / tables / numbers / evidence• More about narrative, call to action, stories• MAKE IT REAL

• Evidence based policy or policy based evidence?• How to challenge constructively (while keeping your job)

The public health offer

• Knowledge, application & understanding• The science and art of promoting and protecting health and well-being,

preventing ill-health and prolonging life through the organised efforts of society.

• Technical skills• Data, intelligence, needs assessment, evaluation, evidence review

• System leadership skills• Often minor players in terms of money & commissioning power• Positioning public health as the broker, the facilitator & enabler• ‘Whole system view’ – joining stuff up

Who are the ‘wider workforce’?

• Often mentioned – but who do we mean?• Staff from all parts of the council & statutory partners

• Voluntary sector?• Business?• Community leaders?

• But why would they?• How will it help them?

Essential skills

• Public health knowledge, skills & experience

• Softer skills• Influencing & negotiation• Political & political

• Relationships• What’s keeping you awake at night?• How can we work together on that?• The power of the right cup of coffee

Window of opportunity

• The public health ring-fence goes in 2018• Move to funding from business rates in 2019

• Public health in many councils has already changed• The rest will be looking at restructuring / future models• The risks are becoming more acute

• We MUST grow public health now

The role of assessors and verifiers

Wider workforce - challenges

• Maintaining consistency and quality across a wider range of practitioners

• Working across different professions, organisations & sectors

• Ensuring they are competent and safe to practice

• Ensuring they are able to apply public health principles to all of their work

• Supporting them to influence their colleagues & teams

Assessors

• Influencing locally, demonstrating the value of public health

• Applying the standards to a wider range of work areas• Accepting new types of practice and evidence

• What is acceptable evidence?• What demonstrates competence and safe practice?• Feeding this back to the UKPHR

Mentors

• Preparing a portfolio is tough & time consuming• Mentors can make it more do-able

• Formal – co-ordinated by regional programme• Informal – often by assessors in the workplace

• Essential role• Needs recognition and support

Verifiers

• Influencing & demonstrating the value of public health

• Ensuring consistency between assessors• Ensuring consistency across different and new areas of practice• Maintaining quality, competency & safety across the programme

• See portfolios from many different practitioners• First to understand how things are changing & to spot trends• Able to identify new approaches, best practice, case studies

UKPHR

• Pulling it all together – coordination between programmes

• Policy setting • Acceptable evidence, safe & competent practice, standards• New areas of work, independent practitioners

• Sharing good practice examples, case studies, new approaches

• Continuing to develop & support new regional programmes

• Strategy – working & influencing the national decision makers

A call to action• Understand the unique public health offer – and sell it

• Recruit a wider range of people onto the practitioner programme & develop them into assessors & verifiers

• Ensure the standards are used flexibly to recognise wider public health work – while maintaining consistency, safe & competent practice

• Get out there and grow public health

Growing Public HealthThe new world – it’s noisy out thereRisksOpportunitiesPublic health in the new worldChallenges to public healthThe political dimensionThe public health offerWho are the ‘wider workforce’?Essential skillsWindow of opportunitySlide Number 12The role of assessors and verifiersWider workforce - challengesAssessorsMentorsVerifiersUKPHRA call to action