As a result, from 26 March 2013, this Transforming Public Health bulletin website will no longer be updated and these pages will be archived by The National Archives (TNA).

We will redirect our website addresses to make sure you can still access the archived information.

For all future updates, please refer to Public Health England

• Tweet

This is the last issue of the Transforming Public Health (TPH) bulletin. From 1 April 2013, when Public Health England (PHE) takes up its full responsibilities as a new body to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities, PHE will issue its own external bulletin.  If you already receive the TPH bulletin directly from the Department of Health, PHE will be sending you our new stakeholder bulletin in the near future.

In this final DH authored issue we provide an update on Public Health England, including the latest PHE appointments, news on a global burdens of disease study and the CMO’s latest warning on infectious diseases.

Click on the links to view:

• Public Health England Update

Click news for:

• Global burdens of disease study
• Call to action to tackle avoidable early deaths
• Cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy
• CMO warning on infectious disease

Click people news for:

• Concordat Steering Group update

Click events for:

• LGA annual conference
• Regional ‘going live’ events
• Mental health in the new public health system

Click other news for:

• New public health regulations
• Local Authorities – Health and wellbeing boards and health scrutiny regulations
• CMO interview
• Public health services contract
• Survey on public’s understanding of their own health

Download Transforming Public Health Bulletin Issue 16 March 2013 (PDF, 180KB)

Gateway reference number: 18865

Disclaimer
Unless otherwise stated, guidance referred to in the bulletin has not been commissioned or endorsed by the Department of Health – it is evidence that organisations and professionals may find helpful in improving practice. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is the Department’s provider of accredited evidence and guidance, which can be found on the Institute’s website at www.nice.org

• Tweet

The Local Authorities (Public Health Functions and Entry to Premises by Healthwatch Representatives) Regulations 2013 have received Parliamentary approval and will come into force on 1 April. A summary of all the secondary legislation affecting local authorities in their new role will be published shortly. On 28 February guidance was published on the charging aspects of the regulations. Guidance on the mandatory functions will follow.

Local Authorities – Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny Regulations

The Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013 have now been published. The publication of these regulations provide a step forward in enabling local authorities to finalise local preparations for health and wellbeing boards and health scrutiny arrangements.

CMO interview

Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, has set out an explanation of the need for the new public health system in a recent interview for Civil Service World magazine. It can be found here.

Public health services contract

The Department has published a public health services contract, which local authorities can use when commissioning public health services to satisfy their public health functions under the NHS Act 2006.

Survey on public’s understanding of their own health

Market research company MORI have carried out some work on the public’s understanding of their own health and what could be done to improve it. One message is that while people understand what they could do to improve their health they are very often reluctant to act on this. The findings can be seen here.

• Tweet

The annual conference ‘Better local health; realising the ambition’ was held in London at the end of  February in partnership with Public Health England, the Association of Directors of Public Health and the Faculty of Public Health. The conference highlighted the innovative work already being undertaken by councils and public health teams with their partners and communities and looked at how to build on existing best practice to identify and tackle the challenges and opportunities of the new public health landscape.

Regional ‘Going Live’ events

Public Health England is holding a series of regional ‘Going Live’ events in its four regions, co-produced with a group of organisations including the Local Government Association, NHS Commissioning Board and the Association of Directors of Public Health. Events last week were in Leeds (North of England) and Swindon (South of England) and this week in Leicester (Midlands and East of England) and London.

Mental health in the new public health system

Earlier this month, Public Health England hosted a national event on mental health in the new public health system. This was a continuation of work begun one year ago to begin to build a mental health programme with partners from the NHS, local government, the voluntary sector and professional agencies.

• Tweet

Advertising vacancies

To assist local authorities in preparing to fill any vacancies within the public health functions transferring from PCTs to local government, interim arrangements – to 15 March 2013 – are in place, as follows:

Local authorities may be able to access NHS Jobs through arrangements with their local PCT.

Where local authorities are unable to access NHS Jobs, they can advertise on the People Transition website.

Work is in progress to provide local authorities with direct access to NHS Jobs from 1 April and further information on this will be provided as soon as possible.

Pensions provision

A letter from Public Health England Transition Team was sent to directors of public health and primary care trust HR Directors on 28th February 2013. It sets out the agreement on pension provision for transferring staff, for ‘new starters’ from 1 April 2013 and for the groups of staff for whom ongoing access to the NHS pension scheme has been agreed. We have also published a document including Frequently Asked Questions covering how their current pension arrangements will be affected by the transfer to local authorities and information for both employees and employers on other issues such as NHS pension direction orders, automatic enrolment and NHS injury benefits. The document and FAQs can be found here.

A set of Frequently Asked Questions have been developed for local authorities on administering the NHS Pension Scheme.

Transfer Schemes

The final version of the core transfer scheme documentation has been published on HR transition zone on a password protected website here. Your HR team should have a password.

In addition, the LGA has sent the following to local authorities via regional employers:

• covering letter from Carolyn Downs, Chief Executive of the LGA to LA Chief Executives
• management FAQ document developed jointly with Department of Health setting out the process and options for councils
• local Memorandum of Understanding document available as an option for councils
• letter from the Department of Health to the LGA explaining the reasons for final ministerial decisions on the issue

Concordat Steering Group workshop

An update session for local authority HR leads, public health leads and their trade union and NHS partners was held on 5^th March 2013, in London. Keynote speakers discussed ‘getting the culture right’ and ‘professional support to local authorities from PHE’ and interactive workshops were held on:

• Agenda for Change and medical contracts
• Pensions
• Sustaining and building talent

For more information, please contact diane.bell@dh.gsi.gov.uk

Frequently Asked Questions:  People transition policy module 2

The PTP module 2 set out the terms and conditions for staff on transfer into PHE as well as the new terms and conditions for staff joining after 1 April 2013. Additional FAQs on the publication are now available.

See Public Health England People Transition Policy FAQs for Module 2

• Tweet

An analysis of the UK data from the Global Burdens of Disease Study 2010 has been published in The Lancet. Co-authors include Professor Kevin Fenton, Public Health England’s (PHE) Director of Health and Wellbeing and Professor John Newton, PHE’s Chief Knowledge Officer. The paper shows that while life expectancy in the UK has improved over the last 20 years, levels of ill health have not. The UK is now below average on many important indicators compared with 18 countries with a similar or higher level of health expenditure, being 14 other EU countries and Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States.

Call to action to tackle avoidable early deaths

Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt has launched a call to action on reducing avoidable early deaths. Improvements in the fight against the 5 major causes of death, including new plans to tackle cardiovascular disease, could save 30,000 lives by 2020, he said. He has outlined his ambition to cut avoidable deaths from the 5 major causes – cancer, heart, stroke, respiratory and liver disease – and to make life expectancy in England among the best in Europe.

Read more

Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy

DH has published a Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy which provides advice to local authority and NHS commissioners and providers about actions to improve cardiovascular disease outcomes. It sets out outcomes for people with or at risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in line with the NHS and public health outcomes frameworks and identifies 10 main actions to improve outcomes.

Read more

CMO warning on infectious diseases

Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies’ second annual report on infectious diseases published last week calls for politicians to treat the threat of antimicrobial resistance as seriously as that from MRSA.  Health Protection Agency staff contributed to the report which provides a comprehensive overview of the threat of antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases. It can be found here

• Tweet

Public Health England (PHE) has finalised its organisational structure in advance of going live of 1 April. It can be seen here.

The following National Executive appointments have been announced recently:

• Michael Brodie will be the new Finance and Commercial Director and will take up post in June following the retirement of Dr Tony Sannia, Director of Finance and Resources.
• Dr Jenny Harries has been appointed Regional Director for the South of England and will take up post full time in April.

These complete PHE’s National Executive. The directorate headed by Professor Kevin Fenton is being renamed ‘Health and Wellbeing’. A full list of the National Executive can be seen here.

A further six of the eight vacant PHE Centre Director posts have also been announced

• Dr Jane Rossini, currently Joint Director of Public Health for NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale and Rochdale Borough Council, has been appointed Centre Director for Cumbria and Lancashire;
• Dr Fu-Meng Khaw, currently Joint Director of Public Health for NHS Newcastle and Newcastle City Council, will be Centre Director for Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire;
• Dr Gina Radford, currently Consultant in Public Health at NHS Cambridgeshire, will be Centre Director for Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Essex;
• Dr Shona Arora, Joint Director of Public Health for NHS Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire County Council, will be Centre Director for Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire;
• Professor Debra Lapthorne, currently Joint Director of Public Health for NHS Plymouth and Plymouth City Council, will be Centre Director for Devon, Cornwall and Somerset;
• Dr Jim O’Brien, currently Deputy Regional Director of Public Health NHS South-West, will be Centre Director for Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Dorset.

Most of our new appointees will be in place before PHE is up and running in April. Where not, contingency arrangements will be confirmed.

Recruitment is taking place for the remaining two director posts for the centres in Thames Valley and Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire.

Public Health England centres and regions

Public Health England centres will be responsible for assuring that the services and expertise provided focused on local needs. Its director will be a full partner in the local public health system, which includes the voluntary and community sector, and their role will be to provide a range of services and expert advice that is tailored to the needs, wishes and aspirations of local government, clinical commissioning groups and the local NHS.

Each centre will provide leadership and support across all three domains of public health – health protection, health improvement and healthcare public health. This will include:

• supporting local government in their leadership of the local public health system
• supporting directors of public health across the range of their responsibilities enabling them to access specialised advice and support when required
• working with the NHS Commissioning Board to support it in its role as a direct commissioner of key services, including specialist services and national public health programmes
• providing leadership in responding to emergencies where scale is necessary.

PHE’s four regions are coterminous with those of the NHS Commissioning Board and other national partners and they also map onto the nine regional local government groupings. Each will nurture, assure and support the local public health system and maintain an overview of the whole system’s progress in implementing the Public Health Outcomes Framework. They will have a special responsibility for workforce development.

Public Health England brand and web address 

Public Health England has adopted the Royal Coat of Arms as its corporate logo from 1 April, capitalising on research, which indicates the public have confidence in the Royal Arms.  PHE’s email address from 1 April 2013 will be @phe.gov.uk and web address will be www.gov.uk/phe

Local authority and academic public health – medical revalidation and honorary contracts

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association, in conjunction with Public Health England (PHE), recently sent out a communication to universities to collect the necessary information on public health academics who might need to replace their current NHS honorary contract for one with PHE.

Where PHE holds an honorary contract for an academic, the contract will enable PHE to act as the Responsible Officer for medical revalidation, provide access to clinical excellence awards and fulfil the obligations within the academic consultant contract previously undertaken by the NHS. PHE will also be the designated body for the medical revalidation of local authority public health consultants.

If you are a public health academic and have not heard anything from your university please contact your HR department or email the Department of Health directly on localpublichealth@dh.gsi.gov.uk before 1 April to request advice.

For both academic and local authority medical consultants who are unsure about their medical revalidation see the Faculty of Public Health website and email revalidation@hpa.org.uk before1 April.

Further details on the continuation of funding for certain public health academic activity was given last month here

Chief Knowledge Officer Bulletin

The latest two issues of Public Health England’s Chief Knowledge Officer Directorate transition bulletins can be found here and here.

Public health surveillance publication

The “Towards a Public Health Surveillance Strategy for England” document has been published. This sets out plans for developing a coherent surveillance strategy for public health in England, drawing on the skills within Public Health England across health protection, health improvement and clinical services as well as those of our partner agencies such as the MHRA.

Read more

Collaboration between PHE and NICE

Public Health England and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) have agreed on five areas of collaboration. These include communicating with and supporting the local public health system, reviewing evidence and providing evidence-based guidance and other products, providing access to evidence, providing support to put guidance into practice and creating a standard public health taxonomy. Professor John Newton, Chief Knowledge Officer, is leading on this for PHE.

• Tweet

Duncan Selbie explains the regional structure of Public Health England, and how PHE will interact with other organisations on a local level.

Find out more

• Tweet

Find out more about Michael Brodie

• Tweet

Duncan Selbie notes the strength of local leadership across PHE, and is looking forward to ‘going live’.

Read Duncan’s voicepiece

• Tweet